Provisionally Yours
by snapslikethis
Summary: Lily Evans discovers she's been married off to James Potter without her knowledge. She and the spoiled count (in whom she appears to have finally met her match) have three days, for better or worse, to decide whether to accept the contract. With her sister adamant to make her life miserable, and a husband who seems equally determined to repel her, what else can possibly go wrong?
1. Mock and awe

James offered a perfunctory knock on the door to Sirius's sitting room before he threw it open. Heaved it open, more like—it was a damned heavy door. At least it slammed shut behind him with a satisfying thud.

Less satisfying: his traitorous ex-best mate lounging in an overstuffed armchair next to the fire, a glass of something amber in hand. The bastard didn't have the decency to look up from his crossword.

James folded his arms. "Where in the bloody fuck have you been?"

* * *

In a tucked away corner of the same castle, Lily ignored the persistent knocks at her own door. She retreated beneath the water, where no shrill sisters or mad suitors could grieve her.

She'd have stayed submerged indefinitely, with only her dull thudding heartbeat and the slow rising of bubbles for company, but there were her lungs to think of. When she could endure it no longer and emerged, panting, a heart-faced brunette was standing over her.

"Mary!" Lily cried. "I was afraid you were her. Where on earth have you been?"

* * *

"Here," Sirius said, deigning a glance in James's direction. He waved a hand to indicate the room at large. "Obviously."

* * *

"Gathering reinforcements." Mary grinned, patting the bottle-shaped bulge in her dress pocket.

Bless her, she always knew precisely what Lily needed. She didn't even mind playing the role of dress-maker and sometimes servant—mostly—though they both abhorred the pretense.

"You are my favorite. Did you know?"

"I did," Mary said, settling herself onto the small stool beside Lily's bath, "and you're mine, which is why I forbid you to drown yourself."

"But—"

"No objections."

"Nevertheless—"

"Lily."

Lily, undeterred, began, "And yet, the argument remains—"

Then Mary gave the bath stopper the tiniest of tugs with her pinky, and Lily promptly shut her mouth.

* * *

"Why didn't you come to dinner?"

"Why would I, when my presence wasn't required?"

James fired the sharpest glare in his arsenal at his shit best mate. "You could have shown a modicum of support, Padf—"

"Don't 'modicum' me, Prongs," said Sirius. "Moan about tonight, but not at me for skiving. I'm tired, and my arse is still numb from riding all day." He sipped from his glass, then grimaced. "This brandy is shit."

James opened his mouth to object, but Sirius continued, "I've endured more evenings filled with dull conversation, and cards,"—his lip curled—"and you making an arse of yourself than I care to count. You'd have passed, too, were you in my position."

* * *

Mary tapped on the glass perched on the bath's rim, held in place by Lily's wrinkled fingers. "Have you started sulking without me?"

"Can you blame me?"

"That depends. Are the rumors true?"

Lily worried her lip—what garbled version had Mary heard third-hand from the scullery maid? Did it matter? No. Whatever the version, it couldn't have been any worse than the truth. She nodded.

"Go on, then," Mary encouraged, patting her hand. "Might as well tell me."

After taking a deep, steadying breath, Lily described the shambles that had been her evening.

* * *

"Well, there was plenty of that!" James slammed his gloves—tattered and stained, thanks to her—on the small side table, nearly upsetting the half-drained liquor bottle. He commenced pacing the length of carpet that stretched between the chairs and the fireplace.

"Cards?" Sirius asked.

"Cards, forced conversation, the whole bit," he said, shrugging his jacket off mid-stride and tossing it onto the unoccupied chair. "And she—she was maddening, mate. I come to these things. Well, you know… Mum asks… a bloody jellyfish…"

"James."

Right, he was muttering. James slammed his fist on the hearth.

"Damn it to hell if supper wasn't awful, Sirius. Worse than all the others!"

* * *

"Catastrophe is the word you're searching for, dear," Mary said, tucking a stray curl of Lily's sopping hair behind her ear.

"I was considering fiasco, actually, though that works just as well."

* * *

"Worse than the brunette from Wales?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah. And the blonde from Lincolnshire—remember her? With the goats? Worse than the pair of them combined."

His mate gave a low whistle.

* * *

Mary rested her chin on her palm and contemplated Lily's declaration.

"The absolute worst?" she asked. "Even than that poor gentleman from Hampstead?"

Lily snorted. Until this evening, Aubrey had been the worst of her suitors, and had been neither poor nor a gentleman. A pompous, forward, presumptive arse, he'd deserved every farthing of his comeuppance. He'd been the worst of them, yes, and even he couldn't hold a match to Peters.

Lily sank back under the water; several bubbles pooled dramatically at the surface.

* * *

"A fucking fiasco, 's what it was." James tugged at his hair, and encountered something gelatinous. Repulsive, yet unsurprising. He wiped his hands on his already ruined trousers. "She stormed out, actually—Evans—before I could apologize for the draperies, or her piano, or—"

* * *

"To Potter? You want to apologize?"

"I never said I did, only that I was considering it." Lily's fury had begun to wane, leaving a dull, aching guilt in its wake. The bit about the crocodilehad been over the top, even for her. She cocked her head at Mary. "Potter? You're sure that's his name?"

"Quite."

"I'll have you know," Lily said, "that Potter is an arrogant, smarmy git. Acted like I ought to have been swooning all over him! Kept on and on about his horse and his fencing accomplishments. He was horrid. Insufferable, really."

Mary looked unconvinced, which did nothing to assuage Lily's burgeoning guilt.

Lily eyed the stained, scorched, crumpled heap of silk in the corner and shifted tactics: "He ruined my gown…"

Mary had the audacity to laugh. "You ruined two hours of my afternoon complaining about that gown, Lily, not to mention—"

"Oh, I don't give a damn about the gown, Mare." Lily pushed a wave of bubbles over the rim so they fell onto Mary's knees. "Good riddance to it—no offense to you."

"None taken."

Because Mary had made the frilly thing—at Petunia's bidding, of course. Lily had never made her distaste for it, or for any of them, a secret.Petunia. Lily tried another approach. "I didn't care about the gown, as I said. My sister, on the other hand,"—she leveled a delicious smirk at Mary—"was positively furious…"

* * *

"—and her sister's a right fucking piece of work, let me tell you—" James paused his frenetic pacing to face Sirius. "Everything we've heard about them—the Dursleys—is true."

* * *

Lily rolled her eyes. "Only her shrill voice could carry through these thick walls."

"Forgive me for heading in the opposite direction?"

Forgive her? Lily was, if anything, relieved that Mary hadn't eavesdropped, and hadn't heard those awful things her sister had shouted. However, she tapped her glass against the rim of her bath and said, "As recompense, you could reinforce my empty glass."

Mary shook her head. "Not until you've gotten out of this tub and into a nightgown."

"It's going to be freezing," Lily whined. Petunia still refused to repair the fireplace.

"You're freezing now," Mary pointed out. When Lily made no effort to move, she unstopped the tub and the water started to drain. And though Lily made a face, she took Mary's proffered hand all the same.

"I asked Minerva to bake a tray of your favorites."

"And that, Mare, is why you're my favorite."

* * *

"...that's hardly the point." James resumed laps in front of the fireplace, loosening his ruined cravat in one pass, tossing it in the flames during the next. "The point, mate, is Mum and Dad pulled me aside, tortured me with the usual lecture. Duty. Responsibility." He cringed at the foul words. "Family pride."

* * *

"At least the whole affair is finished." Lily slipped the cozy nightgown over her head and thick wool stockings over her feet. "They'd be mad if they stayed past first light, wouldn't they?"

"Well—"

"I'm going to indulge in this bottle tonight and a long lie in tomorrow. This day cannot get worse."

"Erm, actually—" A discomfiting crease had settled in Mary's brow, and she picked at the hem of her dress sleeve. "On my way to the kitchens, I happened by the Potters' quarters and overheard—"

"Overheard?" Lily snickered. "Eavesdropped, more like." She cozied herself in her chair and nursed her drink, relishing the warmth that spread from her chest.

"Well, yes," Mary admitted, "I was, but his mother was lecturing him so soundly I couldn't resist…"

* * *

"I ignored every word, of course."

"As a decent son ought," Sirius said, finally making a solid contribution.

"Exactly. You'd have been proud at how little I was paying attention."

* * *

Lily's mouth twitched. "Did they take his pony away? His matches?" She leaned toward Mary. "Did he cry?"

* * *

A smile half-formed on James's lips; he quickly scowled it away. "Then they told me what they'd gone and done."

"Who did what?"

"They—our bloody, traitorous parents. And it."

"In front of you?" Sirius smirked. "Was it worse than when we happened upon them in the greenhouse?"

"Didn't we make a blood oath never to mention that?" James rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, upsetting his glasses; they landed lopsided on the bridge of his nose. "No, Padfoot. They married me off—to her."

* * *

Lily jumped to her feet, and several drops of whisky dribbled down her dressing gown. "They what?"

"They married you," Mary said, delivering it in that same awful voice she'd used when her parents had died, "to Potter."

* * *

Sirius's smugness vanished. "Shit."

* * *

"Shit." She slammed her glass down onto the outdated table, which quivered under the assault. "You're certain?"

* * *

"Yes," he moaned, "I'm sure." Then he crumpled into the vacant chair and buried his face in his hands.

"Is that legal?"

James's muffled voice recited, "Provision seven-hundred and twelve, paragraph four—"

* * *

"—line three point two," Mary confirmed, "and a half."

Lily recoiled. "That's impossible."

"I'm sorry, Lil."

Lily couldn't believe it, refused to believe it. "How—how could they know? After I doctored those law books?" Her fingers clenched, remembering the dozens of tiny paper cuts they'd earned slicing page after page from the library's legal volumes.

"The Potters must have."

As her legs threatened to buckle, Lily perched herself on the chair's arm. "Petunia married me off to a complete stranger?" Her voice sounded foreign, hollow.

"It's been their threat all along," Mary said gently.

* * *

"Idle threats, Padfoot—like the sheep."

"The sheep that turned out not to be an idle threat?" Sirius arched a questioning eyebrow. "I thought we made an oath never to discuss that."

James retreated into silence, distracting himself with fastening and unfastening the damned cufflinks his mum had made him wear.

This was it, then. Married. At last. To a woman he'd just thoroughly pissed off. She loathed him, and had said as much. That had been his plan, after all.

In his defense, it had been his best sabotage yet, loud and viscous and just a bit pyrotechnic. The furious look on Petunia Dursley's long, horsey face had been phenomenal. Sonnet-worthy, if he were at all poetically inclined.

Sirius cocked his head. "But is she fit?"

* * *

"Who?" Lily said. "Peterson?"

"Potter."

She'd do well to learn his name, hadn't she? "His hair is awful," Lily lamented. "I'm married to a bloke with terrible hair."

"I saw the hair, Lily. I found it quite dashing."

True, his hair had been rather wonderful. She'd rather drown than admit it to Mary, so she shook her head vehemently. Mary, however, rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward, a knowing grin on her face.

"Besides the hair?"

Handsome, devastatingly so. Lily had nearly cancelled her sabotages, all of them, before he'd opened his mouth and thoroughly ruined the illusion. Yet she couldn't lie, not to Mary, so she heaved a sigh and slid sideways off the armrest to sit more securely in her chair.

"Well…"

* * *

"Yes." Incredibly, unfairly, intoxicatingly fit, though he needn't spur Sirius on. "That is decidedly not the point."

"Bit of a consolation though, isn't it?" Sirius asked, casting him a knowing grin anyway. "She could have been a complete troll. Or an actual troll, if the gossips are right about Dursley's sister…"

* * *

Lily gawked at Mary. "How is that a consolation? We're married! And he was a complete bloody toerag at dinner."

"So were you, dear," Mary said. "And you were going to apologize."

Lily fixed Mary with a glare that she hoped conveyed the many and complex ways she was imagining killing her.

* * *

"Married, Padfoot!" James pounded his fist on the arm of his chair. "They fucking married me off to a nasty, vindictive, redheaded shrew who informed me not an hour ago that being eaten alive by a family of ravenous crocodiles was too decent a death for a 'bleeding, big-headed, arrogant bastard such as myself!'"

* * *

"Completely un-buggering-believable," Lily seethed.

Mary shoved a macaron in her mouth.

* * *

"That statute sounds made up," Sirius said. Casually, as if they were discussing the bloody crossword rather than James's mortal doom. "Are you sure they aren't just—"

"Quite. Prick. I was preparing my challenge, but they had the reference ready."

Sirius shifted in his chair, pondering the matter. "Did you—?"

"Yes."

"And had they—?"

"Mhm."

Sirius tapped his chin. "And the thing with—?"

"Implausible."

"Damn!"

"Exactly."

James leaned back, closed his eyes, and willed the chair to open up and swallow him whole. Sirius shrugged and drained his glass in one gulp.

* * *

"Double damn," Mary agreed as she refilled Lily's glass.

Lily rested her head on her palm, ignoring the way the room's chill sapped away any feeling in her fingers. "I wonder how much they paid Petunia."

"Or she paid them."

Lily's stomach curled. The idea was ludicrous. Or it would have been for any other sister. If Petunia had shelled out, Lily hoped that it had been a hefty sum of money. Dursley was a notorious miser, especially when it came to Lily, but the only thing he disliked more than parting with his money was Lily.

It was all so pointless.

"Mary, I'm going to run away."

* * *

"And go where?" Sirius asked. "I'm the runaway. We can't both be disinherited. Who'd support our extravagant lifestyle?"

James rose to his feet, then aimed a half-hearted kick at the ottoman.

* * *

"Do you want me to pack the usual bags?" Mary asked.

Lily sunk back down, defeated, wanting nothing more than to disappear into the chair. No one would marry a shabby old chair off to a bloke with a rat's nest that passed for hair.

"This is shit," Lily said.

Mary refilled her glass.

* * *

"This is shit," James declared. "This is shit and you're sitting there secretly looking at your crossword."

"Am not," Sirius said, eyes darting up from his crossword.

"Why aren't you panicking about this? I'm your best mate, and I'm married, and—"

"Sit down, Prongs, and have a drink." He slid a half-full tumbler across the table, then began ticking off his fingers. "One. It's funny as hell. Two. It's not me. Three. Your face, right now? Portrait worthy. Mostly, I'm not panicking, mate,"—he tapped his knuckles on the table—"because this was inevitable. They couldn't let you stay a bachelor forever."

"Forever?" James yelped. "I'm nineteen! I'm not the sodding prince or anything."

He sipped his drink. It was shit brandy, though not as shit as Sirius was for a mate. Nor as shit as his life had just become. He sipped again.

"You're a count," Sirius said. "I'm the favorite, of course, Prongs, but you are the Potter heir."

"And that's enough?"

Sirius nodded gravely.

James drained the glass in one long gulp before slamming it down. "Dreadful."

"Another?" Sirius refilled the glass without waiting for an answer: double the normal amount, then triple. He looked to James, who shook his head imperceptibly, and poured until it was in danger of spilling over. Satisfied, he raised own in mock salute.

"Well, brother," Sirius said, "you are completely fucked. Never heard a better occasion to get piss drunk."

James picked up his own glass, sloshing quite a bit during the process, and toasted back.

* * *

Lily rummaged through her corner cabinet until she retrieved a dusty glass. She ran the hem of her nightdress around the inside before pouring Mary a generous measure.

"Unfortunately, the room hasn't yet had a chance to chill it," Lily said, setting down the bottle, "but it's something."

Mary held up her glass. "To your marital happiness?" she tried.

"As Potter is just as keen me on as I am him,"—Lily eyed her glass—"we're better off toasting to whisky."

* * *

"To mediocre brandy," James said, "my true love. Perhaps the only thing that will see me through this sham of a marriage."

* * *

"Cheers."


	2. Best served hot

Lily stood before James Potter's four poster, fury still thundering through her veins. Since her sleep had been fitful at best, and since her cow sister had woken her at dawn, it was appalling that he—if his loud, disjointed snores were any measure—should enjoy the luxury of blissful, uninterrupted sleep.

She yanked his bed hangings apart with a flourish.

Potter shot up, startled, and froze once he registered her presence.

"Er—morning," he mumbled, his voice far scratchier than was really necessary.

Lily threw a hand on her hip and gave him the horrid frown she typically reserved for mice and Miss Marjorie Dursley's dog. Though Potter balked under her scrutiny, rumpling his already-rumpled hair, he made no attempt to cover his indecently bare chest. And then he stretched, reaching for his spectacles.

It was a rather nice torso, wasn't it? Lean, and long.

"Did you know?" she asked, because he was a shirtless prick and she needed to properly refocus her anger.

"No!"

Potter ran an agitated hand through his hair. She was on the verge of conceding Mary's point about said hair when she caught him gawking at her chest, his mouth agape, eyes magnified like a barbarian owl. Lily folded her arms protectively over herself and glowered in a way that communicated that he was four seconds from castration.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Lily Evans.

He blinked several times—an embarrassed barbarian owl, then—and looked away. The tips of his ears matched her burning cheeks. Lily, uncomfortable, shifted her weight from one foot to another.

"If I'd have known," he said, "I wouldn't have come. I definitely wouldn't have been as big of an arse to you last night."

An admittance of guilt, although surprising, couldn't bring her mother's piano back. She saw no lie in his face. "Good." She added, largely to unsettle him, "That's what your mother said as well."

"That I was an arse?"

"No," Lily said, repressing a smile. "That you didn't know."

Registering the full implication of her statement—finally—he threw his blanket off and jumped to his feet. What kind of man slept without bedclothes? He immediately swayed and sat back down upon the bed, bracing his elbows on his rather knobby knees. She spied the empty brandy bottle on his nightstand.

"You've spoken with my mother?"

A prick of vindictive pleasure coursed through Lily at the panic in his voice; she bit back the smidge of guilt that appeared for it. She also bit back her own stab of panic at the sight of him in naught but pants.

Potter cleared his throat. She jumped. He was staring at her, expectant for an answer. Had he asked a question?

"My mother?" he repeated. "You've spoken with her?"

With great effort, she mustered a curt nod.

"What—ah—else—did you the pair of you discuss?"

Though he posed this as a throwaway question, he gulped. He gulped, and that bobbing of his Adam's apple was not-not-not endearing. Also not endearing—the way he buried his face in his hands, all manic and hopeless.

Why hadn't he affected her like this the night before? Perhaps she'd been too immersed in her plans to take proper notice.

Buggering shit.

"Oh, this and that," Lily said. Desperate to regain her upper hand, she smiled sweetly and clasped her hands behind her back. "I believe, Potter, that we discussed how lovely the roast chicken might've been if you hadn't given in to your baser impulses and destroyed it."

He lifted his head out of his hands to glare daggers at her. She deserved it, every bit of it—the roast chicken had been her subterfuge, after all, yet she'd sat there primly, sipping her wine, pretending to be scandalized while he'd received the blame.

Lily, remembering her amends, retrieved the tea tray from the bench at the foot of his bed and carefully placed it next to him. He eyed it warily, as if a poisonous snake might slither out of the spout.

"It's safe," she said. "I didn't tamper with it."

He laughed, the git. "Very reassuring, that."

"It's not from me, Potter. It's from your mother."

"My mother prepared tea?"

He swallowed, and his jaw twitched. Lily's mouth went dry.

"She was on her way here to serve you tea, actually," Lily clarified, "when we crossed paths. I offered to bring it to you as amends. So…here we are."

An incomplete truth, strictly speaking, but he did not question her further. When he made no move to take it, she prepared a cup for herself and took a pointed sip. Although he sighed heavily as if he weren't at all convinced, he prepared a cup for himself. The intoxicating aroma wafting from the fresh baked biscuits might've broken him down. Lily refrained from taking one.

With a look of utmost distrust, he took a tentative sip. Next second, he spat it out. "Whisky?"

"That's from me."

She'd added the whisky for her own benefit, but he laughed, and the movement sloshed tea all over his knee. He cursed vehemently. With a stifled smile, Lily traded her saucer for several biscuits and retreated to the bedpost at the foot of the bed.

They sat and stood in thick, awkward silence.

After he'd drained his cup to dredges, he asked, "Did you know? It'd go a long way to explaining your actions, if you had."

She engrossed herself in the design iced onto her biscuit. Ridiculous, that he could make her feel any measure of shame when he was the one barely dressed. Eventually she managed, "Last night was…well, that was—yes. That is, no, I didn't know."

"Well…good," he said, visibly relaxing. "I was going to confront you last night. Only I had no idea how to find your room." He helped himself to a biscuit, and continued between bites, "That, and I was well on my way to getting piss drunk. With Sirius, who I—"

Lily snorted. "I know who Sirius is."

"How?"

"He terrorized the servants last night, and Mary is fairly enamored with him—"

"Mary?"

"Never you mind. Are you going to apologize?"

"Apologize? I said I didn't know about any of it!"

"Not about that." Lily crossed her arms again. This hypocrisy was unfair, yes, but knowing it didn't seem to be enough to stop her. "Are you going to apologize for being an absolute prick last night?"

"No." He set his saucer down and stood, grabbing the canopy to steady himself. "I am not going to apologize…"

Damn, Potter was tall, far taller than she'd given him credit for. Extreme height, however appealing, couldn't excuse the drivel now spewing from his mouth: "We were both awful last night. And if I'd have known you were my—you know—that we were—yeah. I wouldn't have done. So. There."

He finished with a nod, as if that half-arsed non-apology settled the matter. That was likely all he ever needed. He was a count, after all. Not of the Dracula variety, though she might've preferred a blood-sucking fiend to the wealthy, pampered boy before her. She felt sick.

Or perhaps that was the whisky-spiked tea and leftover tarts Mary had served for breakfast.

A glance in the mirror assured her she'd turned the same revolting shade the soggy peas had been the night before. They'd been his first casualties, and they'd landed in her hair.

She needed to sit.

"D'you want to sit down?" he asked, indicating the bed.

She stared at him, wide-eyed and incredulous. He was nearly nude, this husband of hers from a marriage neither of wanted, and he'd just invited her onto his bed? No matter his intentions, that was—

"Right. That was…untoward. Sorry."

He blushed, head to toe, and Lily found it—endearing? Yes, very. Her rationality had clearly taken holiday in France. Bloody buggering shit.

"You'll apologize," she said, "for breaching antiquated societal rules and not for the ruination of my piano?"

"I'm a man of many contradictions, Evans."

He smiled enigmatically—which had no effect on her whatsoever—and carded a hand through his hair.

Damn impropriety, she needed to sit, so she did—as far to the edge as she could manage without losing her balance. Her toes barely grazed the floor, and she fought to keep them from swinging. Lily pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Feeling all right, Evans?"

"Am I all right? Has it escaped your attention, Potter, that they m—" Lily broke off, then tried again. "That they did this, this M-thing,"—she gestured between them—"against our will?"

"It's not altogether awful." He began searching the room for something. His trousers, hopefully.

"Enlighten me."

"I'm quite attractive, for one," he said.

"Modest, too."

"Of course."

Her retort died on her lips, for in that moment he bent over double to root around the bottom of his wardrobe and the view of his rather magnificent bum rendered her temporarily speechless. Her go at gaping like a barbarian, then. He turned around, caught her staring, and wiggled his bum suggestively.

"This is serious, Potter!" she said, keen to redirect the conversation.

"Only trying to lighten the mood."

"Well—don't!"

"You aren't conveying the proper level of outrage here."

"You don't need my outrage, Evans—you're doing splendidly enough for both of us." He gave the wardrobe up and wandered over to her.

"That doesn't make any sense, if you were upset enough to drink yourself to oblivion last night."

"Actually, er. That might be…I think I might still be a bit drunk."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

With that, he dropped to the floor and groped underneath the bed. He was agile, even hungover, wasn't he? Lily swept her legs up and out of his way.

"Aha!"

Potter extricated his singed, stained trousers from beneath the bed. Lily watched half-horrified, half-fascinated as he lay flat on a rug and wiggled into them one leg at a time.

"You're going to take this whole business lying down?" she asked.

"Standing up, actually," he said, jumping to his feet, "but yes. What's our alternative?"

Her alternative was expulsion from the premises, Mary alongside her, if she refused to go with the Potters. That had been her sister's ridiculous ultimatum, and she wanted to rage against the unfairness of it all. According to the Provision's grace period, she only had three days to decide whether or not to reject the contract.

He had three days, too.

Did Potter know about the loophole? Lily had discovered it only because she'd so thoroughly scoured the legal volumes. The Potters weren't leaving for three days, so they must know. Had they told their son?

If he rejected his parents' marriage contract with the Durlseys, Petunia would stick to her ultimatum. Lily couldn't risk Mary's homelessness, or Potter doing something stupid, like accept the contract out of pity. So she had time. Not much, mind, but if she was clever enough, she might think of something.

At the very least, she could get to know Potter better. That's why she was here, after all—to make an informed decision. Or something.

Lily tucked those depressing thoughts away and settled for the more cheerful—and more likely—alternative: "We could stew in hostility and bitterness for the next forty years."

Potter shrugged. "I've got Sirius for that. And this—M-thing, as you put it. It could be worse, Evans."

"So you say," she said darkly. "I'll remind you we've had one supper together—a complete catastrophe, mind, half-arsed apologies aside—and you're my bloody..."

He swung around the corner post and grinned at her. "Husband?"

Lily laid flat on her back, the better to brood at the underside of the canopy, and balled the sheets in her fists. Silk? She sighed. Potter braced his hands on the footboard and leaned forward over the bed so he was looking down at her.

"I don't even know your middle name, Potter," she said, peering up at him. "You could be a murderer! What if you live in a troll's cave?"

"You're not a troll as far as I can tell, Evans," he said. "And I assure you, I don't live in a troll's cave."

When she showed no amusement, he tried again. "I've never committed any murders," he said. "Spiders excepting."

"What about birds or foxes?"

"Why do you think I'm not out there right now?"

"I reckoned you were avoiding my esteemed brother-in-law's fine company."

"That, too, but no. I don't hunt."

Unusual—a gentleman who abstained from hunting. She refused to give in. If she wanted to brood, dammit, he couldn't stop her.

"My middle names, plural, are Phillip, Alexander, and Fleamont, though not in that order."

"Fleamont?"

"The scourge and the burden of my life," he said, falsely grave, and earned one fleeting, reluctant smile. "Aw, come on, Evans. It could always be worse… At least no one's going to stand outside our bedchambers to ensure things have been, you know, consummated."

She shot up. "Our" and "bedchambers" scarcely belonged in the same conversation, and here he was, using them in the same sentence.

He frowned and scratched the nape of his neck. "At least I don't think they—" He stopped talking once he caught the full force of her glare.

"They'd better not," she warned. "Though I wouldn't put that past my sister."

Potter took a step backwards and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Your sister? She seems…"

"She is. I bawled her out just now, actually. Counter-productive, but cathartic."

"I'm sorry to have missed that."

"She's just terrible enough to marry me off without my consent. She, I understand. Your parents, though, don't seem the type…"

He shook his head. "They're typically—great."

"Why do they want to match you up so desperately that they'd stoop as low as the Dursleys?"

"You'd have to ask my mum, since you're so friendly," he said, glum. "They've been threatening to pair me up for two years."

A heavy quiet stretched between them. Something needed to be said, surely, though Lily hadn't any idea where to begin.

"Was there some sort of ceremony last night? Was there a priest? Were there drums?" she asked, when she could endure it no longer. "I know I was...inebriated...I think I'd remember saying, 'Yes, I'll marry this prick.'"

"Thanks."

"No, sorry. It's just— Understand, Potter, it's not you I'm opposed to, strictly speaking. Rather, it's the entire idea that's nausea inducing."

"I can sympathize with that," he started, and then gave a sharp glance. "Wait—it's not me?"

Damn her traitorous mouth. Lily winced.

"You seem…tolerable," she offered, "hair and hubris withstanding." A generous admission, all things considered. She regretted her generosity when he leveled what he no doubt thought was a winning smirk at her. "I mean, for an arrogant prat such as yourself."

"There's the Evans I've come to expect." His smirk morphed into a full on grin. She liked that one best—the genuine one, a boyish, toothy thing that pulled a little too far to the left.

"This whole mess is just…"

"A fiasco?"

"Yes, exactly."

"We need a rebellion." He sat on the bed—careful to leave the tray and a respectable distance between them—leaned back on his hands, and gave her another sidelong glance. "Unfortunately, Evans, I am shit at rebellion."

"My piano begs to differ."

"That's sabotage. I excel in sabotage. Rebellion is a different category."

"Do you happen to have an army of troll mercenaries hiding in that messy hair?" Was she bloody teasing him?

"My troll army is back at home, I'm afraid." With a nervous chuckle, he tried to pat his hair down. The gelatin from the night before acted as a congealing agent, though, so he only succeeded in making it worse.

"Pity."

"Indeed."

Yes, she was teasing him. An alarming development, or ought to have been, but half a plan had formed in her mind. Reckless, Mary would call her, and a fool to boot. And yet Lily mirrored his position. Even crossed her legs for good measure.

"What's the next best thing to rebellion, Potter?" she asked.

"Sabotage?"

"No," she said, grinning slyly, "sabotage is better than rebellion."

"Revenge?"

She smiled. "Precisely."

"I'm shit at revenge, too."

"Lucky for you, then, that I excel in it."

"We detest each other," he reminded her.

Did they? Did she? For her part…he wasn't entirely terrible. He didn't deserve the crocodiles, at any rate. Astronomy tower, perhaps, though he needn't know that. So she shrugged and said, "The enemy of my sister is my temporary ally."

He adjusted his glasses—a terribly distracting habit. "Are you sure that's how it goes?"

"Do you want revenge?" she asked. "I'll warn you, while your parents will disapprove, it's more my sister who'll be outraged."

"I'll bite. What is this plan?"

It wouldn't be so bad if he actually bit her. Bloody buggering fucking shit, where had that come from? This was an awful, reprehensible, terribleidea. Still, she leaned over the tea tray.

"It's mad," she said.

He leaned closer. "Sounds promising."

"A bit devious."

"The best ones usually are."

"Completely counter-intuitive."

" Evans —"

He gave that grin again, and Lily found it contagious.

"All right, what we need to do is…"

* * *

James watched his reflection's fingers fumble with the buttons of his dress shirt, a task they'd never before found difficult. Understandable given his brain, struggling to remember the finer points of their Plan, resembled the consistency of warm gelatin.

He'd long considered himself a principled man. Questionable principles, sure, but he'd always followed a particular code. Topping his list: outside the Marauders, operate alone. He'd broken that by agreeing to this. With Evans. He'd gaped at her, thunderstruck, after she'd delivered the general idea. It was mad. Counter-intuitive.

Also: completely fucking brilliant.

Only, when she'd looked sideways at him, awaiting an answer, a grin had toyed with the corner of her mouth, threatening—promising?—to curve into a smirk. And that bloody promise of a smirk had been enough for him to yield. He'd agreed to her mad, brilliant plan before the Remus in his head could present a logical reason not to.

James Potter, he told himself, you are a fucking arse, and he reached for his cravat.

After he'd agreed, she'd insisted that he put on a shirt. He'd argued the point, more or less to antagonize her, when she'd reminded him they were now temporary allies. Which of course meant not being a prick, so he'd obliged.

Revenge couldn't be half-arsed, they'd agreed, but their consensus had ended there. Success hinged upon being scandalous. They'd squandered two hours arguing limits, setting phases. The last of James's inebriation had worn off.

As they'd argued, he'd had three cups of tea to compensate.

Once they'd devised a strategy, they'd reluctantly addressed the bigger problem—credibility. Because allies or not, he didn't trust her. He wasn't sure he liked her. He was certain he didn't want to be married to her.

Practice was the obvious solution. To suggest it, however, would've earned him a kick to the shin. Or worse. Finally, Evans, blushing magnificently and staring at his shoulder, had stammered that they ought to rehearse. The color deepened the color in her eyes—already a vivid, startling green. For the sake of a proper revenge, James had supposed, he'd endure certain sacrifices.

When she'd asked how he thought they ought to go about it, he'd figured holding out his hand was safe, neutral starting point.

He'd been wrong.

Because her hand had fit like it was bloody made to be there. Adding insult to injury, it had been indecently soft, and he'd realized that he didn't want to let it go. Why in the bloody fuck had his heart skittered? Sirius would've thrashed him for such dodgy poetic shit.

He'd wanted to thrash himself, but then she'd leaned forward and kissed him.

And when her lips—impossibly soft and warm—had pressed against on the hollow of his cheek, his skin had scorched, melted. Lightning-struck. His sodding toes had tingled. She'd pulled back instantly, her face mirroring his own shocked, though not displeased, expression.

She'd kissed him, and he'd wanted to kiss her properly. Not some paltry peck on the cheek. His tingling cheek had reminded him that a peck on the cheek was nothing to balk at.

It was just that he'd wanted more.

He'd leaned forward to reciprocate. Unsteady her a bit, too, perhaps. And he maintained, all these hours later, that her eyelashes had fluttered closed.

She'd had a light dusting of freckles on her cheek. His lips were just grazing three of them when Sirius had burst into the room. Then the bastard had burst into a fit of laughter as he'd spied them on the bed.

They'd sprung apart. Evans had risen with as much dignity as she could muster, had smoothed the wrinkles in her dress. And she'd walked without a backward glance toward the exit, ignoring Padfoot's magnanimous bow.

Or nearly, until her hand had darted out and shoved his shoulder, tipping him off balance. Sirius fell on his arse. Her own cackle had echoed around the room, loud and chaotic, as the outer door slammed shut.

James had quickly followed, dodging Sirius's kick on his way out the door.

He spent the early afternoon getting lost in the castle, mulling over Evans, and this bloody marriage he'd been forced into, and where on earth his indignation from the night before had escaped to. The time they'd spent together today wasn't wholly terrible—she was a damn sight more tolerable when she wasn't trying to slip a mouse down his trousers.

He'd found his mother's rooms, finally, and just in time—he'd nearly starved to death. There, he'd made amends by way of a vase of flowers he'd stolen from a table on a landing between floors, where Evans had told him they would be, and some rubbish apologies, which she'd made him rehearse.

His mother, as repayment, shared her sandwiches and had told him about the loophole.

The technical term was caveat, but James knew enough about technicalities, and about wheedling around the finer points of rules, to know it was a loophole.

Which, great. A way out. And he should've been overjoyed, shouldn't he? He should have insisted they leave, right then and there.

Except he and Evans had made this plan, and he had two and a half days left to sort it out, and didn't want to make a rash decision, and his cheek still burned, and—

A rational person would've found her quarters and talked to her. James had instead made his way to his own rooms, where he'd found Sirius securing monogrammed cufflinks to his wrists. His curiosity had been piqued enough to endure dinner and cards, Sirius had said, though he'd warned that it had better be worth his bloody while.

And now James, thoroughly ruffled, studied his own reflection. Exactly what in the hell was it he'd just gotten himself into? He tightened his waistcoat. As if that might squelch the turmoil in his stomach.

Damn Lily Evans and her perfect too-soft hands and her tingle-inducing lips. Did she know about the loophole? Was this entire plot a ruse to make him look like an idiot, a double revenge for her piano? His instincts told him no, and his instincts were usually right.

He slipped three matches into his dress coat pocket, just in case.

He and Sirius strolled into the drawing room at four minutes to seven—eleven minutes past their expected arrival time. Sirius ignored the Dursleys, bowed to their mother, and moved toward their father.

James stopped before the lounge and channeled his etiquette training into executing a crisp, elegant bow. Ignoring his mother's bemusement, he focused instead on Petunia Dursley's strained, over-bright smile.

"My apologies, Dame Dursley, for Lily's absence," he said. "She's fallen rather behind schedule and asked not to delay on her account."

Dame Dursley's teeth vanished beneath a thin, sharp scowl. Whether her anger stemmed from Lily's tardiness, or from the fact that James was somehow privy to this information, or from him referring to her as Lily, he didn't know. All three, hopefully.

"Of course we shall wait," his father said graciously.

His mother patted their hostess's clenched fist. "It's no trouble at all, my dear. And thank you, James."

Dame Dursley's tight smile returned, and the ladies resumed their rather animated discussion. James stationed himself by the fireplace, where his opinion on rhododendron care was less likely to be solicited. Sirius, unwilling to risk it, wandered into the dining room and plucked the dinner menu off the table. James caught his mother's eye and repressed his smirk. Best not risk her ire when he'd soon earn it in spades.

Determined to avoid further eye contact, James marveled at how the room had already been set to rights: a plush rug covered the scorch marks, and an ornate harp had replaced the ruined piano. He gazed through the repainted double doors into the dining room—new draperies hung suspended from the rods and a horrid portrait adorned the wall behind Dursley's chair, concealing the hole. Although the chandelier had been restrung, the dining table was two feet shorter. So the middle section hadn't been salvageable after all.

As five minutes turned to ten, then fifteen, James turned over Course One Protocol in his mind. The simplest phase, sure, but the execution would set the tone, good or bad, for the rest of the evening.

* * *

"Ow!" Lily reached behind her to bat at Mary's hip.

"You insisted," Mary reminded her, "that you wanted him to, and I quote, 'covet' you."

"I didn't know that you would interpret that to mean a bloody corset, MacDonald."

Upon surveying her reflection, however, Lily couldn't deny that the corset, when combined with Mary's alterations, achieved her desired effect.

Petunia was going to be furious.

Mary seemed to read her thoughts: "If she dismisses me for ruining this dress…"

"You didn't ruin it, you enhanc—"

"I very much doubt she'll agree that removing five inches from the neckline is an enhancement."

"I'll tell her I did it, then."

Mary rolled her eyes. "She'll never believe your stitches were that tidy."

True. "Then she'll be too busy glowering at these," Lily said, placing her hands under her breasts and looking down, "to examine the stitches. If all goes according to plan, that is."

"And you're quite sure you won't tell me the specifics of this plan of yours?"

Lily shook her head. Mary could hide out in the kitchens—as always—and the staff would keep her apprised.

"All right, because Stebbins saw you going into Potter's room this morning," Mary said casually. Lily could tell she'd been saving that tidbit for an opportune moment, and privately resolved to take away Stebbins's secret stash of booze first thing tomorrow morning. "And Gerty said you didn't leave until noon." Hers too, then.

"Were you having me followed?"

"Potter, not you, but the question that begs, Lily—"

"I beg you not to ask it, Mary—"

"—is what were the pair of you up to for so long, alone and unchaperoned?"

A blush creeped up her neck and blossomed on her cheeks.

She could've come clean, then, about all of it: how he'd seemed so determined to cheer her up, as if her misery had personally pained him, or how she'd kissed him so impulsively, or how his hand, although sweaty and rough, had been warm and reassuring. She'd been wrong about his eyes—they weren't brown, strictly speaking, for they had flecks of green and gold that she hadn't noticed the night before.

She should have come clean about the loophole and its quickly diminishing time limit, and her sister's ultimatum, which complicated matters tenfold. And, yes, her Plan—this foolhardiness Mary would've stopped in three seconds flat.

To divulge any of it, however, would've meant divulging all. So, she summarized: "The enemy of my sister is my temporary ally."

"That's the most idiotic, nonsensical thing I've ever heard, Lil. What does that even mean?"

"It means… It means perhaps I was wrong about him, is all."

Not a complete lie, anyway.

"What aren't you telling me?"

"Heaps of things, love," Lily promised. "Ow!"

"Sorry, love, sorry. You're all done." Mary spun Lily around so they were facing each other and cupped Lily's face in her hands. "I may not know the particulars of this plan, Lil, but as your friend, and someone who cares about you, I want to remind you—"

"Yes?"

"Your plans usually turn to shit."

Lily snorted. "Thanks."

Mary moved her hands to rest on Lily's shoulders. "Are you sure you want to carry this nonsense out, whatever it is?"

And Lily could've said no, and Mary would've unbuttoned her dress and untied her corset. Lily could've breathed and skived off dinner and left Potter hanging. But her lips still tingled. And she really had misjudged Potter, or at least underestimated him. He was worth her fair consideration, at any rate. Besides, the potential for revenge really was far too tempting to pass up.

Mary was looking at her so earnestly, and she deserved something of the truth.

"I have three days to back out of the contract," Lily said, before she could stop herself. "A grace period."

"The loophole," Mary said. "How could I forget about that?"

"Well, you were distracted last night, what with the crying, and the consoling."

"And you—why don't you just say no?"

"It's—complicated."

Thankfully, Mary did not press her for more.

"And he has the choice too, right?"

"Yes."

"And he knows?"

Lily bit her lip. "He must, right? His parents certainly know, otherwise they'd have left already."

"Do you want me to make sure his mate knows?" Mary offered. "Then it'll get to him by tomorrow sometime, at least…"

"Yes, please."

Because she didn't feel right, if he didn't know about the loophole. He could back out and leave her homeless, yes, but she could back out and run away. Fair was fair.

"Then what's all of this?" Mary asked. "Allies and enemies and everything?"

"It's—revenge."

"Revenge? Against Petunia? Whatever you're planning, it's not going to change her mind…"

"I know, Mare, but it will infuriate her. And that's precisely why this will be fun."

"So this,"—Mary looked Lily up and down—"is for the sole purpose of pissing her off?"

"Yes." And her still-tingling lips.

"You'll want to pop these a bit more, then." Mary tugged the front of Lily's dress down, then glanced at the clock. "It's half seven, dear. I think you've kept them wait long enough."

* * *

He needn't have doubted her ability to pull off scandalous.

As he stepped forward with his arms extended to greet her, both his gulp and his grin were involuntary. Privately, he vowed to send whatever dressmaker the Dursleys employed a proper bottle of rum.

And when Evans leaned forward to receive his kiss on her cheek, Dame Dursley made a fatal mistake in breathing a loud, disapproving sniff. Evans measured her sister's response, then cupped a hand behind his neck to pull him down.

Next moment, she kissed him full on the mouth.

Kissing Lily Evans was the more he'd been craving—and not enough—all at once. Those three seconds between the jump and the land. A perfectly executed maneuver. Winning. Then every comprehensible thought vanished except for her taste, and her feel, and more. His hand dropped to her cheek, and the tips of his gloved fingers brushing against a loose tendril of her hair. The other reached for her waist.

Only his father's loud, contrived coughing fit intervened.

She took a tiny step back, flashing him an impish grin.

"Good evening, darling," she breathed. Light and airy, as if she hadn't just taken them to Course Three Protocol.

She bounced on her toes—wonders for her bosom, that bouncing did—to peck him on the cheek. For his part, James stood, swaying. Transfixed. Unable to move, even though he ought to lead her to the dining room. After a short pause, she grabbed his hand and led him in.

Their elders filed behind in stunned—or, in her sister's case, mutinous—silence.

James waved the butler off so he could pull out Evans's chair. Chivalry, with the added benefit of breaking protocol. Double rebellion. When she brushed by him, indecently close, her fingers grazed his arm. He battled the urge to shove her into the table.

"Terrifying creatures, swans," Sirius remarked, breaking the terse stillness. He shook his swan shaped napkin out and placed it in his lap.

To compensate for his many repressed urges, James allowed himself to intercept Evans's hand as it reached for her water goblet. Ignoring her curious glance, he turned her hand in his. His thumb slowly inched the hem of her glove back. Next moment, he pressed his lips to the inside of her bare wrist.

She twitched, so he did it again.

At the third kiss, his mother demonstrated how much displeasure one could communicate in an "ahem." Heeding the warning, he set Evans's hand on the table.

Dame Dursley, who looked as if she might chew through her cheek, signaled the first course; butlers set down several trays overflowing with oysters on the half shell. Both he and Padfoot uncouthly picked up oysters from their respective platters. Sirius slurped the juices, but James swiveled in his chair to face Evans.

"Do have an oyster, Lily-flower," he cooed. If his addition of the pet name surprised her, she didn't show it. Her giggle was damned off-putting. Those fluttering eyelashes? An altogether different story.

"No pearl," she said, all mock disappointment, which didn't even make sense, yet James didn't miss a beat.

"You're lovelier than any pearl, my sweet."

His now-empty hand ran lazily up and down the length of her back. Laces. Laces implied corset.

Evans in a corset.

He gulped. He'd never seen a corset, mind, but Sirius had a set of lewd playing cards and he had the general idea. James promptly withdrew his hand.

"Perhaps I should call you Pearl," he asked, in a pitiful attempt to distract himself, "rather than Lily-flower?"

She smiled beatifically. "Call me whatever you want, James, darling." Her gloved finger trailed the edge of his lapel.

He bit his cheek. He contemplated what Evans-in-a-corset calling him James might be like. He winced as he received a sharp kick to the shin. Only after seeing Evans's confused face did he realize who had kicked him.

James broke his rapturous gaze at Lily to glare across the table at Sirius. His mate's hard stare was a fucking inquisition in its own right. Unsurprising, as he'd been vague on the particulars.

James flicked his ear twice—a ruse in play.

Sirius scratched his nose three times—carry on, you arse—shrugged, and resumed his slurping.

James surreptitiously peered around the table. At the head, Dursley's mustache threatened to squirm off his twitching face. To his right, James's mother—ever the diplomat—distracted him by asking about the peas. Dame Dursley, seated at the foot, cut each of her individual peas in half with great vigor. To her right, his father amiably carried on a one-sided conversation about his own garden, unaware or uncaring that his hostess was hardly listening.

He was quite probably drunk.

After he and Lily had subjected their families to several pet names and lovesick stares, James turned his attention to his oysters. The sauce was marginal. As he hadn't had a proper meal since breakfast the day before, his stomach overrode his palate.

"I would share mine, darling," Evans said, glancing at his quickly empty plate, "but I'm much too shellfish."

His father, who had thus far remained impassive to their antics, let out a hearty, approving snort, which so startled Dame Dursley that she nearly upended her glass.

James chuckled in spite of himself. A terrible joke, sure. At least Evans had a sense of humor. He wasn't smiling because she looked entirely too adorable beaming, smug at her own cleverness.

Wordlessly, their hostess motioned for the mock turtle soup. It proved delicious, so the course passed in relative peace.

Except Sirius, who seemed to have regarded James's amusement at Evans as both a personal insult and a challenge, spent the next quarter hour proving he was better than her. And he was amusing, torturing Dame Dursley with a series of mildly humiliating queries on the finer points of her dinner service—everything from her linens to the placement of the salt. James smothered a laugh in his napkin when Sirius cited chapter and verse the Ladies' Etiquette Guide from which she had clearly drawn the inspiration for her floral centerpiece. While instructing her on scale, he fussed it into a better arrangement.

Their mother had long learned to pick her battles with Sirius. Nevertheless, when he probed Lady Dursley for her reasoning behind the 'curious' beverage pairings, she intervened.

"Cultural differences, Sirius," she said, and her tone invited no argument. Sirius looked put out at having been so effectively dismissed in three words.

Dame Dursley took a fortifying drink from her goblet, then waved her napkin for the lobsters.

As James finished cracking open Evans's lobster tail, she lowered her hand beneath the table to rub slow circles on his knee. He kissed her bare shoulder, and she stomped on his foot. He forcibly removed her hand from his leg and set it neatly on the table.

He didn't let go, however, and she made no move to pull away.

James had seen something of Evan's competitive nature the night before. They'd taken turns, course by devastating course, in systematically destroying dinner, and with it whatever hopes their families had held for a marriage offer. That didn't hold a candle to this.

Because she didn't do anything by half measure, did she? And if Evans, currently whispering pretend-scandalous things in his ear, her breath hot against his neck, was going to be his wife, being in over his head might be something a recurring theme.

The bit that bothered him? He wasn't sure the revelation bothered him at all.

And, while he was indulging in this moment of honesty, he could admit he liked touching her. And why shouldn't he? She was nice, and warm. Soft. She reduced him to monosyllabic descriptors. What more could a bloke want?

He downed his mead in one gulp. For fun, his thumb scraped along her wrist. Evans drew in a sharp intake of breath.

He was enjoying this far, far more than he ought to.

Dame Dursley proved unable to contain herself a moment longer.

"I must express my surprise," she said, gazing at the pair of them, imperious, "that you two are getting on so well."

"I would think, dear sister, that our happiness would delight you."

"And so it does," Dame Dursley said, her tone conveying the opposite. "I only wondered how the pair of you managed to resolve your numerous differences in so short a time."

"Our differences weren't as great as we thought they were."

James moved to speak when Lily squeezed his hand. He understood: this was her battle. He need not interfere.

"My draperies beg to differ."

"The new ones are lovely by the way. Yellow is just your color. It suits." Dame Dursley's tight lipped smile reappeared at the insinuation, but Lily wasn't finished. "You didn't think, Petunia, dear," she said, "that James and I would let a forced marriage to a complete stranger condemn us to a lifetime of misery, did you?"

James choked on his drink; Lily let go of his hand to thump his back.

"There, there, darling," she said. "It's all right."

Once he'd recovered, Evans returned her attention to her sister.

"He's marvelous, Petunia, really. I cannot begin to thank you enough."

"Not as wonderful as you, darling," James said. "I've never known such happiness as I've found with you, these last twenty hours." He kissed her cheek.

This, it turned out, was his fatal mistake, for Sirius interjected himself into the conversation: "Twelve hours, Prongs, not twenty." Then he faced their hostess. "They reconciled their differences this morning, Lady Dursley. I happened upon them,"—James kicked Sirius's shin so violently the table shook—"in James's bed."

Four heads snapped toward James and Lily. Given that they were bloody married, their families really shouldn't have been so scandalized, but there it was: Dursley spluttered and flushed a menacing shade of purple, and the glass in Dame Dursley's hand shook with cold fury. Even his mother, the model of comportment, nearly dropped her fork.

Sirius grinned at James, and James repressed the urge to chuck a fork at him.

His father saved them all. He aimed a compliment toward Dame Dursley so long winded—involving, among other things, the quality of her furnishings, the efficiency of her staff, and the variety of pond stock—that James's heart started beating again, and his lungs remembered how to breathe. His father droned on for so long after that that James grew bored, letting his mind wander. James scanned the menu. Seven courses, by his count, two nights in a row.

Evans, like James, was still avoiding eye contact with anyone else. He leaned in and murmured, "Are the meals always this extravagant?"

She gave him a mirthless smile. "I'm only invited to dine if a prospective husband is here." Then, sensing his indignation, she said, "I'd rather dine in my room." However much he doubted her, he was in no position to argue. "And no," she added, "they aren't."

"Small consolation then," he said, pointing to the menu, "but at least this is costing them a small fortune."

When his father finally finished the diversion, Dame Dursley snapped her fingers for the venison.

"Cheers," Evans said, and hurried to finish her wine before the butler carried it off.

Black, in an effort to garner James's attention, drummed his fingers on the table. James, still furious, refused to comply. Only when Sirius tapped his knife against his glass did James reward him with eye contact.

"Dame Dursley," Sirius said, "doe allow me to compliment the venison."

James's mouth twitched. He'd known what was coming, sure—had known since he'd seen venison on the menu. His irritation didn't prevent him from raising his own glass in salute. "To die fur."

"Staggeringly delicious," Evans added.

A pause, then Sirius raised his glass to Evans and inclined his head. "Excellent point, deer lady."

"Indeed," James said, "I'm rarely so fawned of such a tough cut—"

"The chef clearly put his full hart into preparation," Sirius finished.

"He's a capital fallow," James agreed.

"I herd otherwise, gentlemen," she said. "You see, our chef is a fine lady."

"Children," his mum interjected, calling them all to heel, though James caught the familiar crinkle in her eyes.

With a shared snigger, he, Sirius, and Evans returned to their respective plates.

The reprieve in their Plan had been Evans's brilliant suggestion—a middle course when their affections ceased and they'd be reserved, polite models of decorum. Lull their families into a false sense of security, and all that, before launching back in.

James tried to, anyway. Only he found himself distracted by her shoulder. The slope of it, for one thing. The freckles, for another—including a little cluster that changed shape every time he glanced back at it.

"Stop staring at me," she murmured.

"Aren't I supposed to stare at you?"

Her blush wasn't part of the ruse. He doubted that memorizing her damn cluster of freckles and mentally composing them into different constellations was, either.

As the salads were consumed, James gave in, turning sideways in his chair to massage her shoulder. Although his mother seemed determined to ignore him, Dame Dursley's scandalized expression made up for her indifference.

When Evans buried a retaliatory hand in his hair, he dropped his fork. He kept his hands—and eyes—off her until the cake was served.

"She's a spotty cow who deserves every bit of this," he mumbled into her ear between bites of nut cake. She concealed her mirth with another teetering laugh.

"You must try some ice cream, darling." Off-putting, that false, cheerful voice. Good thing—his prick didn't need any more encouragement.

"That, darling," he croaked, "would be divine."

She implored him to open up and fed him a spoonful. When he reciprocated, she laughed so much that some dribbled down her chin. Before she could lift her napkin, he leaned forward and kissed it off. He reveled in her shocked expression, and risked another peck at the corner of her mouth before settling back in his chair.

"Thanks, Jamie," she replied, giving his shoulder a painful pat.

Sirius snorted. "Only Countess Potter has permission to call him that."

Evans rolled her eyes at Padfoot.

"You don't mind, do you, Jamie?" She took her glove off, slowly, left it in his lap, and slower still, extended her arm to rub the back of his neck. Her damn nails dipped under his collar.

"You can call me anything," he said, though he had the decency to despise himself for it.

Dursley's face contorted. James's mother diverted his attention by inquiring after his landau, which he'd left prominently on the drive on the morning of the Potters arrival. His expression softened as he launched into an impassioned description of the carriage's every feature.

James tried to reign himself in. This proved difficult because Evans had yet to remove her hand from his neck. When she made to sidle onto his lap, he mumbled a pathetic excuse to ward her off. Because if Dursley waxing poetic about retractable windows hadn't been enough to calm him down… He couldn't tell her the truth.

He didn't need to: she guessed as much, glanced down at his lap, and then pressed her lips together in an effort to stifle her amusement.

"S'not funny," James mumbled.

"Oh," she whispered, "it is. Immensely. Such inconvenient things, aren't they?"

James couldn't disagree just now. Though she squeezed his neck again, her expression sympathetic, her smirk belied the point.

He was fucking sunk, more damned than that sodding boat Sirius had been so fond of.

The fruit course arrived. Fucking finally. They were nearly done with this whole business. James drained his glass, the better to earn a refill.

She seemed determined to tease him, now that she knew. When he fed her some grapes, her lips lingered far too long on his fingers. Her tongue darted out and flicked his finger, too, and he barely stifled his groan.

Padfoot lifted his goblet into the air. "I'd like to propose a toast. To the newlyweds," he said cheerfully. "Entertain us with another kiss, won't you?"

James offered a chaste peck on her cheek. It was one thing to kiss her for revenge, or—frankly—because he wanted to. Quite another to do it at Sirius's bidding.

"For shame, Prongs," Sirius chided. "We've certainly seen better demonstrations of your ardor these last few hours." He winked at Vernon Dursley, who again turned a dangerous shade of purple. The silver-plated fork in his hand bent in half. "Come now, Sir Dursley," Sirius added. "Surely you're overjoyed at your sister's happiness?"

"Sister-in-law," was the gruff reply.

"Sister-in-law, then. Family all the same."

The vein throbbing in Dursley's neck plainly expressed his desire to throw Sirius headfirst out the window, but his wife coughed meaningfully into her napkin and brought him to his senses. Dursley reluctantly raised his goblet, which looked in danger of going the same way as the fork, into the air.

"To the newlyweds," he said, more a grunt than a believable proclamation of joy. Each diner consumed his or her respective goblet's contents in one swallow.

Sirius picked up an orange. "Well," he said, looking to James, "orange you going to entertain us with a proper kiss?"

Their mother gave Sirius a look that would had made a less inebriated man quail; he laughed. Dursley sputtered again, which strengthened James's resolve.

"Of course we don't mind," he said to Sirius, then turned in his chair to face his wife. "Do we, darling?"

Before she could respond, he hooked a foot around her chair leg, dragged it toward him, and kissed her.

Properly—none of the teasing, coy trifles they'd been parceling out. And she gripped his hair, pulling him down, and he properly drowned in her—or was that the mead?

Several things happened at once: Sirius whistled. The glass in Dursley's hand shattered against the table due to the force with which he'd slammed it down. His father called him by name. And that, more than anything, brought James to his senses.

He let Evans go. She scooted her chair away from him with a deafening scrape. He picked at his fruit in deafening silence. She had flushed scarlet, head to toe. James was sure he was smiling like a loon, if the glower Sirius was giving him was any measure. He was sure he didn't care.

The moment the course was over, their hostess, furious and careworn, rose to signal the end of supper.

Except James's mother spoke, which forced her back into her chair.

"Forgive my impudence, Dame Dursley, for the breech in etiquette," she said, raising her goblet. She waited for her hostess's nod of acknowledgement before continuing. "Before we retire to the drawing room, I desire to make a toast…"

As she delivered a small speech about unity and honor and families converging together, she fixed upon James a shrewd look that ought to have made him tremble. He was hard pressed to give a fuck—he was giving her exactly what she wanted, wasn't he? And while the house brandy might be shit, the wine was excellent. Evans's hand had slipped under his jacket, and was rubbing unhurried circles on his back. Sirius had just burst into laughter, and—

What did his mother just say?

* * *

The door slammed shut behind them with terrifying finality, cutting off Sirius's hoarse bark of laughter and Mary's coarse giggles.

Potter rounded on Lily. "Well, that backfired!"

"And it's entirely your fault," Lily hissed. More a slur than a hiss, really, thanks to the three glasses of wine she'd consumed in rapid fire after that awful toast.

"My fault?" Potter took a step closer so that he towered over her, and his shoes grazed the hem of her dress. "Oh, Countess Potter," he said in a horrid imitation of her voice, "your son is so wonderful. I cannot wait until we have a manor full of babies."

"I couldn't break form." She poked an accusatory finger to his chest so forcefully he took a half-step backwards. "She's your mother, Potter. You ought to have anticipated this!"

"Let's not forget whose idea this was to begin with, Evans."

He had her there. She sidestepped him and, when she reached his bed's corner post, sagged against it. Exhaustion seeped into her every joint.

Potter, meanwhile, violently shucked off his dress coat and threw it to the floor. This was indecent, watching him, yet she couldn't look away as he peeled away layers. In short order, he added his gloves, cufflinks, cravat, vest, and shoes to the pile, revealing tantalizing new bits of skin.

When he finally stripped off his tunic, she tightened her hands around the bedpost, too afraid of what they might do if given free rein.

The thing was, he wasn't conventionally attractive. He certainly wasn't polished: his cravat had been a disaster, he'd altogether missed a vest button, and his shoes were helplessly scuffed. Unfortunately for her, the haphazardness only added to the bastard's appeal.

At least things weren't one-sided. That should have been some consolation, only where had it landed them? Trapped all night with only each other, his silk sheets, and his fancy bed for company.

"How did we not foresee this?" she asked finally.

"S'not your fault, Evans." He tugged off his trousers, and Lily's mouth went dry. "My mum is more devious than either of us could ever hope to be." The weariness in his voice matched the soles of her feet.

She kicked off her shoes. "Stop calling me Evans."

He ignored her and made for the bed; she held up a hand to halt his progress.

"You don't think we're sharing, do you?" she asked, panic rising in her throat. "Because whatever their intentions, I'm not—"

With a contemptuous snort, he reached around her and snatched a pillow from the bed.

"May I have the blanket, your highness?" he asked, lowering himself into a sarcastic bow. "Or is that too much to ask?"

She would've given it to him, but it was the only blanket in the room. She'd bribed Stebbins to remove the extras the previous morning, just before they'd arrived.

"No," she said, so prim Petunia would've been proud, "you may not."

"Fine."

Potter threw both his pillow and himself down onto the rug that ran parallel to the bed, then rolled it around himself so he looked every bit a hostile, swaddled baby.

Lily resisted the impulse to kick his legs—moral high ground, as Minerva would say—and made to crawl into bed. Except the bottom of her corset dug into her hips and prevented her from doing more than gasping in pain.

Potter unrolled the corner of his rug to peer at her. "What?"

"I need Mary."

"Why?"

"Are you Mary?" she asked, rolling her eyes at him.

He rolled his eyes at her. "You want to face them again?"

"Not particularly."

"Then what is the problem, Evans?"

"I can't unfasten my dress."

"Can't you sleep in it?"

She crossed her arms and stared down at him. "There's boning in this, Potter."

He gave her a winning smile. "Well, since you're up, would you mind turning down the lamp before you go to sleep?" Then he rolled away from her and snuggled further into his rug.

She stood there, waiting for him to take the moral high ground, be a gentleman, offer his assistance.

When he didn't, she again resisted the urge—stronger, this time—to stomp on his legs, and asked tentatively, "Potter?"

He didn't answer.

"James?"

She heard a muffled snort from inside his rug. He was going to make her ask.

She sighed. "Will you help me?"

Potter turned down the corner of his rug. "I can't hear you from inside my carpet, Evans. I'm afraid you'll have to speak up."

No, he was going to make her grovel.

"Can you help me, please?"

He pretended to deliberate the matter. Or perhaps he was deliberating the matter.

"I will," he said finally, a priggish grin on his face. "If you give me the blanket."

There wasn't any real choice, not if she wanted to get a wink of sleep.

She dropped the blanket onto his face. "You'll need to close your eyes."

He unburied himself from the rug and the blanket. "I'm not sure I can unlace that thing with my eyes open, Evans," he said, staring at her doubtfully, "let alone closed."

"Bloody hell, Potter, it's only laces," she said, turning to brace herself against the bedpost.

And then, holy hell, his fingers were pressing against her back. He'd been touching her back all night, yes, but this was...different.

"Ow!" She'd never been more grateful for pain. At least it meant he'd found the corset.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "How is this supposed to work?"

She forced a shrug. "Mary figures it out."

For several long, torturous minutes, James Potter stood behind her, undressing her. He bloody radiated heat, his fingers fumbling with the knots and buttons while Lily tried to remember how she normally breathed. It couldn't really be this complicated, could it? Surely he was drawing this out to mess with her—

But finally—finally—he figured trick of the laces, the ribbons susurrating as he loosened them. Slowly. Softly.

His breath was hot against her neck.

She couldn't breathe, and it wasn't because of the corset anymore.

She quickly batted away his hands.

"I can get it from there, thanks," Lily said. He hadn't finished, but her state of near undress, with him standing so close behind her in an evengreater state of undress…it was entirely too much.

For once, he didn't argue.

"Right," he said, and took a step back. He'd turned around before she'd ever thought to ask.

She wriggled out of her bodice, jumped onto the bed, and wrenched the curtains shut behind her, her heart hammering in her chest.

She didn't hear him move, not right away, like he was lingering just beyond the curtains. After a few moments, though, his feet shuffled back to the rug.

"The light?" she said softly.

"Right," he said.

He turned down the lamp before settling onto the rug, the blanket rustling as he no doubt wrapped himself up in it.

There they were, the pair of them. Sharing a room. Helping each other undress. In some way this was exactly what she'd expected married life to be. Except, of course, for the obvious.

"Potter?" she said. "Good night."

A beat of silence, then: "'Night, Evans."

And, finally, exhaustion would give way to sleep.

Except the bed smelled like him, which was nearly as alarming as the realization that she recognized his scent. Whatever warmth her drinks had provided had long worn off, but his bed was far more comfortable than her own. Her own unoccupied bed, while miserable and lumpy, was surely far more comfortable than a rug on a cold stone floor.

Not that she cared.

Oh, damn her conscience.

He wasn't snoring.

"Potter?"

He didn't respond.

"James?"

His blanket rustled.

"James? I know you're awake."

He offered a noncommittal grunt.

"Do—are you cold?"

"Go t'sleep."

"Are you cold?"

"You wanna switch?"

"No!"

"Then go to sleep."

"Thing is—I can't."

"Bloody hell, Evans," he snapped, "what am I supposed to do 'bout it?"

She was mad, wasn't she? Or her mouth was, because it invited him to join her.

He didn't respond.

"You've got to keep your hands to yourself," she said.

"Why wouldn't I? We're the only ones here."

Her stomach shifted uncomfortably. "All right, then."

The curtains shifted open, and a sliver of moonlight temporarily blinded her. And then he climbed in, bringing the blanket with him. On the wrong side, of course, because she'd shifted, trying to get warm, and he was on top of her. He flailed. Her legs tangled in his blanket, and she was trapped. He was much, much too close. He might have grabbed her breast. She definitely grabbed his arse.

Finally, he disentangled himself and rolled to the other side of the bed, taking the blanket with him. "Sorry."

"S'okay," was the best she could manage, hoping she sounded tired instead of aroused.

"Get to sleep."

She grabbed the spare pillows and built a large barrier between them.

"That's not necessary, Lily, really…"

"Just a precaution," she said lightly.

"Right," he sighed.

"Good night, James," she said some time later, but he had already succumbed to sleep.


	3. Every victory gained

James woke with a knee tucked between his legs, a small arm curled around his waist, and a forehead nestled against the nape of his neck.

Fuck. What had happened to her pillow fortress?

In theory, waking up to a beautiful woman in his bed shouldn't have been cause for alarm. Unless that woman was one's wife. Well, unless that woman was the wife of a forced marriage, and you loathed each other. She was especially acerbic in the mornings, James remembered.

The important thing, then, was not to disturb her until he'd assessed the situation:

Pants? Yes.

Erection? Not yet.

Drool? Not for his part.

He slowly lifted his free arm and inspected his hair. Chaos. So, perfect.

Both of Lily Evans's breasts were squashed against his back. She stirred, and as she snuggled into him, her lips grazed his bare shoulder.

Hello, erection.

James bit his pillow and conjured every nightmarish, arousal-killing detail of that time he'd happened upon his parents.

* * *

Several minutes later, Lily woke to a mouth full of black hair.

Black hair, which was in her face because she was cuddling its owner.

Shit.

What had happened to her pillow barrier? Damn sleeping Lily. The girl had had one job: keep her hands off the boy in the bed. She vowed to tear upthat letter of recommendation.

Surely he was asleep. He would've chucked her off if he'd woken up. Right? Except he wasn't snoring. Perhaps he only snored after he'd been drinking?

No, he was stock still—definitely awake.

All right, Evans, how buggered are you?

Drool? Shit.

Her breasts? Pressed against his back.

He was unbearably warm. Even in her panic, she appreciated how attractive his stupid, chaotic hair was in the mornings, all mussed up and inviting. She didn't want to touch it, however pleasant it smelled.

Thank hell she didn't have a penis.

"Evans," said a definitely-not-adorably-groggy James, "I know you're awake."

"As are you," Lily said, and, for reasons unbeknownst to her, she also confessed, "I drooled on your back."

"I have an erection."

"Because I drooled on your back?" She wasn't one to judge someone's personal preferences, yet—

"More to do with your fantastic breasts, actually."

They were, yes, though he needn't say so. She rolled onto her back, taking the blanket with her, and pulled it primly to her chin.

"Sorry," she said.

"I know."

"I meant for yelling at you last night."

"I know."

She bit back a retort. "How would you know that?"

"You invited me up here last night," James said, shrugging his free shoulder. "You've got a temper, Evans, but it snuffs out quickly enough."

She wanted to argue, but he wasn't exactly wrong.

He turned to face her. "Sorry your pillow barrier didn't work."

Lily didn't answer—what was there to say? My unconscious molested you?

The silence that followed was uncomfortable at best, unbearable at worst, and he kept watching her.

She stared up at the ceiling.

She ought to leave, yet couldn't bring herself to move an inch. Her lack of a proper nightgown kept her trapped.

"Lily?"

She turned her head toward him. "Hm?"

"What are we going to do?"

She didn't have a proper answer for him. Hell, she didn't have a proper answer for herself. The temporary allies mess—and, yes, the kissing and the touches—had only served to muddle the already murky waters between them.

She knew only two things for certain: she was hungry and she was skiving off breakfast. When she voiced that, Potter laughed—genuine, and full, and warm, an antithesis to the mirthless things he'd given yesterday.

She wanted to hear that laugh again. Three things, then.

"That, Evans, is the sanest thing I've yet heard come out of your mouth."

"In the day that you've known me?" she asked, her lip twitching.

"Two days," he said. "And I'm skipping, too."

"I'm skipping lunch as well," she warned.

He balked. "We've got to eat sometime."

"Mary would never let me starve."

"That's well and good for you, Evans—"

"What about Sirius?"

James shook his head. "He might bring alcohol—as a courtesy—but never food."

On cue, his stomach growled loudly.

"That is a slight hiccup to our plan, Potter…"

"Our plan?"

"I'm taking mercy on you," she said. "I suppose we can go and grab breakfast from the kitchens. You won't survive two hours without me, and you'd have to hide well, or they'll find you." She let that sly grin that seemed to wind him up slip onto her face. Really, it was more work to keep it squashed down when they were going back and forth like this. "Unless you have the power to become invisible?"

"No," James said. "That'd be brilliant though. Imagine the mischief possibilities…"

She laughed. "Honestly, how did your mum survive your childhood?"

"Dunno. Any chance I get to break a rule, though—"

"I don't cause mischief for mischief's sake," Lily said, shaking her head. "I need a valid reason to justify property destruction—"

"Unwanted suitors, perchance?"

"Precisely."

"Not me. Any time I know I can get away with it…"

"And sometimes, even when you can't."

Before he could retort, and before she did something dangerous, or senseless—or both—she rolled out of bed and hurried from the room, chemise be damned, intent on having a quick wash and snatching a serviceable dress from Mary's room.

* * *

James splashed cold water across his face, the image of Evans wearing naught but that damned chemise etched in his brain. His parents in the greenhouse. His parents in the greenhouse. His parents in the greenhouse.

This. Breakfast, he could do. He had to, because time was short, wasn't it?

The door cracked open and she reappeared. As he toweled his face dry, she pulled his wardrobe door open and began sorting through it.

"So," he started. Or tried to, only he seemed to have misplaced his throat. How in the bloody hell could she make a rumpled old dress look so good? He cleared it, then tried again. "Kidnapping me, are you?"

"Taking you in, more like."

"How so?" he asked, his pitch uncomfortably reminiscent of his sixteen-year-old self. Her innuendo was unintentional, surely—

"I heard you got a bit lost yesterday, no? Wandered for hours before you found your mother's quarters?"

Ah, that. He couldn't argue the point. He was willing to argue anyway—if nothing else, she made an excellent verbal sparring partner.

"I've made it my business," she said, "to learn the secret passages of this castle. You'll need me if you've any hope of evading our families."

"Please, Evans," he said, grateful for common ground. "If it's one thing I'm suited for, it's creeping around castles."

"I'm not at all surprised." She hurled a tunic at him. "All the same, you'd do well to have me as a guide. Now get your grumbling stomach dressed."

He wrestled his tunic over his head, then grabbed his trousers from the floor. He was pleased that for once they bore no scorch marks or food residue.

"Tuck in your tunic," she said.

"Excuse me?"

He turned to face her. Her reflection, actually, as she stood before the room's only mirror, twisting her hair into a plait.

"If you're going to pass as a servant," she said, "even from a distance, you've got to look the part."

The insinuation that a servant looked neater than him ought to have been insulting, except his messiness was a carefully crafted persona. He complied, and even attempted to wrangle his hair into some kind of order.

Evans clucked her tongue at his efforts.

He crossed his arms. "You think you can do better?"

He wouldn't mind her hands in his hair, really.

She turned around. "I certainly can't do worse."

He closed the distance between them in four easy strides and ducked his chin. His hair flopped in her face, forcing her to take a small step back.

Even on her tiptoes, he was too tall. He towered over her, giving his best cocky half-smile. She matched him with a sweet one of her own. Too sweet, really, dangerously sweet—

Before he could step back out of her reach, she grabbed his head with both hands and yanked hard, forcing him downward.

"Sodding hell," he yelped. "I'm not a fucking pack animal for you to jostle—"

The protest died on his lips. He bit his lip, actually, while her fingers—two hands' worth of them—combed through his hair. She seemed more intent on massaging his scalp than working through the tangles. The effect was damning.

He'd been too distracted the night before to fully appreciate Lily Evans's hands in his hair. If she continued, he'd have bigger issues. Complicating matters, her dress had been made for a fuller figure, and the loose bodice provided a fantastic view, and—

"Ouch!"

"Sorry," she deadpanned.

"You could try, Evans, not be so damned forceful."

"You could try, Potter, not to stare like a barbarian."

She had him there. Here, too. His eyes flickered to her face—her knowing face, with that smug grin.

"I'll keep them closed, then," he said, "and it won't be a problem, yeah?"

Pleased with himself for having outsmarted her, James could close his eyes in peace and enjoy the bliss.

Except—

"I know Sirius is the more fashionable one of the pair of you," she said. "Still, you could do with putting a bit more effort into your appearance, yes?"

He opened his eyes and glared at her, indignation swelling. It was irrational, this defensiveness—Sirius was more effortlessly dashing than he could ever hope to be—but he couldn't help it.

"I do care," he said, "only I make it a point not to when my parents are trying to woo a woman on my behalf."

"The principle?"

"Exactly."

She laughed. "You're a noble bastard, Potter."

"Absolutely."

She released his hair. Which he was glad about…mostly. The glad part wasn't quite as big as the part that wished she'd have kept on indefinitely. His hair wasn't any less tangled. It might've been worse, actually, but he couldn't force himself to care.

She'd turned back to the mirror, inspecting herself as she folded a green scarf and tied it around her hair.

"What is that?" he asked.

"Black's scarf. I nabbed it from his room."

"Why?"

Why would you cover up that hair? Why would you trust anything from Sirius's pockets to touch that hair?

"They'd spot the red from across a courtyard."

Right. At least she knew her business.

When she finished, she asked, "Ready?"

He mimicked his sarcastic bow from the night before. She flashed that half-smile that had got him into such a scrape yesterday, then kicked his shin as she passed him on her way out the door. Not hard enough to hurt, mind, but damn, it was enough.

He stood rubbing his shin absent-mindedly. James Potter, he thought, you are still a fucking arse.

And then he hurried after her.

* * *

She was showing off.

For half an hour, she'd led him on a circuitous path through the castle: seventeen staircases, twenty-two left turns, thirteen right. They'd passed the same awful suit of armor twice. And now, just ahead of him, she disappeared behind a tapestry. Their fourth hidden passage.

Not that he minded her showing off. Her sneaking prowess and her knowledge of the castle's layout were exceptional. Not that he'd tell her that.

He was about to ask if she'd meant they'd be getting breakfast today when the passage opened into an expansive, low-ceilinged, well-ordered kitchen.

James inhaled. Oven-fresh bread, eggs and sausages, something fruity baking, and cinnamon—the perfect mixture of savory and sweet. Exactly like Sunday mornings back at school.

He missed them, those Sundays. His mates, too. If they were here, Wormy would munch on toast, listen to him whine for hours, and wouldn't make him feel the slightest guilt for indulging in self-pity. And Moony would help him sort his thoughts, asking all the right questions. But Remus had been too ill to travel, and Peter had stayed behind to keep him company, so—

Right. James refocused, and watched Evans pull a picnic hamper from a cupboard. She proceeded to stuff it with whatever food a severe, wiry cook didn't smack her hand for taking.

For his part, James endured the cook's baleful, appraising stare, the sort that would put his cat to shame. As with his cat, he refused to break eye contact. It worked. After several long, uncomfortable moments, she huffed and handed him napkin full of biscuits. Four, to be precise, and ginger—his favorite. The cook cautioned Lily to steer clear of the west wing and returned to her pastry.

James took a bite of biscuit and faced Lily. "Where to?"

Lily traded his napkin for her basket. He scowled at the back of her head and fiddled with the basket's clasp. When he looked up, she was halfway across the kitchen, headed for the wall opposite their hidden entrance.

"Oi," he called after her, "don't you dare eat those!"

"I am a lady," she replied in terrifying imitation of her sister. "I wouldn't dare. Besides, that basket is too heavy for my feeble, delicate arms to manage."

He laughed. Lily Evans was many things, but a lady, she was not.

She turned on her heel, made damn sure he was watching, and took a bite of the largest biscuit. His laughter died immediately; her self-satisfied smirk told him she wouldn't stop there. Cruel, yet effective.

"Fine," he said, "I'll carry the basket. Just don't eat all of them."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Please."

She laughed this time—a genuine, undignified thing that befitted no lady. It suited.

"Keep up, then," she said, and after taking another deliberate bite, she slipped through the kitchen door.

She moved with purpose this time, and he kept close behind. Maybe too close, though, because when she stopped suddenly in the middle of a corridor, he nearly knocked her over. She shot a mock-offended look back at him, running her fingers along the edge of a recessed panel. Something clicked, and a whole segment of wall swung out into the hall, revealing a dark, narrow passage. Lily didn't hesitate before disappearing into it.

James, not one to be out-done, plunged in after her.

Except by the time he secured the door behind them, he couldn't see a damn thing. At least he could hear her footsteps up ahead, and he trailed his free hand along the smooth stone wall to guide his path.

He made it a mere seven steps before his head collided with a wooden support beam. His string of profanities would've made Lupin proud.

"Sorry," Lily said, sounding like she was trying to suppress a laugh. "Where are you?"

Her forehead collided with his chin a few seconds later.

"Here," James grunted.

"Clearly. All right?"

Pity she lost the dramatic effect of him rubbing his forehead.

"Could've waited for me."

"I am sorry."

"A biscuit," he said suddenly.

"I—what?"

"I want my other biscuit. To make me feel better."

"You—no. You'll spoil your breakfast, you will. And you're clearly fine, if you're able to make such unreasonable demands—"

"You ate them, didn't you?"

"No," she spluttered, "I would never—"

"Evans."

"All right, yes, I ate them."

"How? You only had a few minutes. And I earned those. She was terrifying—"

"Keep your bloody voice down," she said. "Her name is McGonagall, for goodness' sake, and she's harmless. Really. I'm sorry, but I was very hungry, and they were delicious."

Though she couldn't see it, he gave her a magnificent scowl.

She must've felt it, for she said, "I'll get you more."

"Promise."

"Yes."

"Say it."

"You're ridiculous."

"Evans."

"James Potter, you lunatic," she said, laughing. "I promise to get you more."

The Remus in his head uncomfortably reminded him that he'd have eaten them too. "Don't worry about it," he said. "Can we light a candle, though?"

"I didn't think to bring one."

"Terrible guide, you are."

"Give me your hand, then."

He held out his hand, but of course she groped blindly for an awkward moment before her hand found his arm. It slid down the length of his forearm until it wrapped around his own, then tugged him forward.

Lily took care to mention steps and twists, but otherwise remained silent as they moved single-file through the winding passage. He didn't mind. Her heartbeat pulsed through their joined fingers, and the thrill of that, and of being in a hidden, secret place thrummed in his own veins.

When she stopped, signaling the end of the passage, he was something like relieved when she let go.

A few moments later, a click echoed, and a sliver of sunlight poured in and blinded them both. James winced. Lily had put one foot into the corridor when he grabbed her wrist, pulling her back. Her hand, still on the lever, pulled the door closed with a loud click.

"Are you mad, Po—" she started, but he clamped a hand over her mouth.

Lily froze, listening to hurried footsteps that had prompted him to action. She shook her head in understanding, and he removed his hand.

"Petunia," Lily whispered, barely audible. Her breath tickled his neck.

The footsteps stopped on the other side of the door. At first James couldn't identify the next noise, but he quickly determined it was fingernails prying at the wall. Lily was pressed against him, knee to shoulder. They didn't dare move.

Indecently small, this passage. He ought to send either a send a basket of horse manure or a basket of biscuits to whoever designed it. Hard to say which.

Being cloistered with coconspirators in tight spaces came with the territory of being a semi-professional sneak. The thing was, he'd never wanted to pin his any of his mates against a wall and snog them senseless.

Four hundred and three torturous, impossible seconds passed before Petunia Dursley finally gave up and walked away. Three hundred and sixteen seconds after that, James motioned for Evans to try the lever again. One hundred and twelve seconds later, she finally clicked the door open and hurried through it.

James leaned against the door jamb, willing himself to breathe. Lily had already hurried around the corner by the time he'd gathered himself enough to close the door. He didn't bother counting lefts and rights as he jogged, basket in hand, struggling to catch up.

He'd thought he'd bloody lost her when he rounded a corner and ran smack into her back.

"You are a shit guide, Evans," James said, thrusting the basket into her arms.

"I told you to keep up."

"That you did." James looked around the end of the corridor she'd led them to. It was tucked away, sure, but it didn't offer much by way of privacy. "Say, is this it?"

She quirked her eyebrow at him.

He understood immediately. Whether it was a test to see if his claims were real or an opportunity to show off, he wasn't going to squander it.

He scanned the floor for obvious seams or worn stones. Nothing. The walls were barren—no brackets or pictures to manipulate. Solid window frame. Several minutes' inspection revealed that three stones in the wall pushed in, yet he couldn't discern any pattern—they didn't do anything. Knocking revealed no hollow spaces or false walls, which left—

He looked out the window. "Southwest corner?"

Lily gave him an encouraging nod.

James squinted at the ceiling. Twenty feet up, he could make out the vague outline of a trapdoor.

"How do we get up there?" he asked.

"When you figure it out," she said, an approving smile on her face, "your reward is breakfast."

"Cruel."

"Motivation."

"To murder you and steal that basket back…"

"Ah, Potter," she said, "you've already sworn you're no murderer."

"Don't tempt me," he said. Not to murder her, but to snog that smirk off her face. What she didn't know… He glanced at the ceiling again and sighed. There was nothing else for it—the stones he'd pressed in were hand and footholds.

"Afraid of heights, Potter?"

James didn't dignify her baseless, dishonorable, completely true accusation with a response. He climbed five feet, ten, pressing every stone along the way. Each time he thought he couldn't climb higher, another stone pushed in, providing another handhold. Fifteen feet up, he struck gold: two wooden doors dropped open like a hangman's trap, and a rope ladder tumbled down.

In case Dame Dursley was still on the hunt, James opted to climb down rather than shout his questions.

"Will it hold?" he asked.

"It will."

"How can you be sure?"

"I built it."

"Impressive."

"Good to have someone around here who appreciates my talents."

"How'd you get up there the first time?"

"Climbed."

He gaped at her.

"I'm lighter than you," she said, matter-of-fact. "And I'm not scared of heights."

"I'm not," James began, but then she waved the basket in front of his face and he decided he'd best not waste time arguing.

"I'd say 'gentlemen first,' but no one here fits that description."

He inclined his head at her. "Age before beauty then."

"Prick."

"You don't want me looking up your dress."

"Of course I don't!"

"And you won't want to miss the fantastic view of my bum."

"You've figured me out, James Potter. Now kindly escort you and your bum up the death ladder so we can eat, yes?"

James climbed all twenty-three rungs as quickly as he could manage, then clambered through the trapdoor into a squat, drafty, circular room. He'd never been more grateful for a dingy stone floor.

"No one ever comes up here," Evans said as she emerged behind him.

"Can't imagine why."

But in reality this hidden, cozy, mysterious room was just his sort of place. The ceiling pitched sharply from the center, and even at the tallest point he might not have been able to stand. Personally he wouldn't have lined the floor's perimeter with cheerful paintings of flowers. But the small trunk, and the clock on top of it, and the haphazard piles of books? Those would have fit nicely into his room at home.

You could tell things about a person by seeing their hidden places. He'd met Evans two days earlier. But here, in this room, James had finally met Lily.

It took something, to show him something so personal, and he wanted her to know he understood. He met her eyes. Pride, faint embarrassment, and something else indefinable crossed her face.

Her embarrassment spurred his, and James looked out the window, examining the view. Sloping lawns, perfectly manicured and dotted with numerous flower beds, stretched far into the distance, ending only at the line of trees a quarter mile off. He could say many things about Petunia Dursley, but he had to give her credit for keeping exquisite grounds.

James didn't feel he had to say anything more as they prepared the room for breakfast. Lily pulled the ladder up and shut the trap door, while James pulled a blanket from beside the trunk and laid it over the center of the floor.

Once they'd settled into place, Lily slid the basked between them. "Eat," she said, as if he really needed encouragement.

Silence fell as they greedily tucked in. This wasn't a proper meal at all—largely cold leftovers from the night before—but he was too famished to care. Only after they'd exhausted the basket's contents did he feel the need to speak again.

"So," he asked, "how are we going to entertain ourselves today?"

She set her pastry down. "Don't look at me."

"What else is there to look at?"

"I've provided the food and the ambiance," she said, pointing to the cobwebs, "so you, Potter, are in charge of our entertainment."

Damned distracting, the way his named rolled off her tongue. He shook his head.

"Any brain," she continued, "that can plot such masterful sabotages can surely find a way to entertain us for a day."

James squashed down inappropriate thoughts that involved putting the blanket to better use.

Instead he produced one of the matches from his pocket and held it aloft. "My entertainment, Evans, generally involves setting things on fire."

"There's a story to tell in there," she said.

He grinned. "Several."

"I'm not opposed to setting things on fire," she said, "but we ought to give the servants a break."

James hadn't given any consideration to the servants who'd been scurrying around cleaning up after his mischief. Something like guilt bubbled inside him at her scrutiny.

"So you can do better?" he asked.

"Than 'setting things on fire' as our entertainment? Absolutely."

"Fire away, then."

"Oh no. First, I'm not giving you the satisfaction of laughing at that terrible joke, so stop looking so bloody pleased with yourself. And second, I'm not giving in. You are going to find something for us to do today."

"Yes ma'am."

"Do you normally manage to squirm out of things?"

James didn't hesitate. "Yes."

"Well, not with me, Potter."

He didn't doubt that. The thought was strangely pleasing.

* * *

He was a spoiled prick, wasn't he?

"I'll entertain you for an hour, Evans," Potter said, and that gleam in his eye had unfortunate effects on her stomach. And her heartbeat. Perhaps her head, too. "If my plan doesn't meet your high standards, you can have a go."

Lily's best—and only, truth be told—idea involved pinning him to the ground and putting that rope from her ladder to better use. Especially after that horrible, awful corridor, and his hand, and (her pride only prickled a tiny bit at the admission) watching his bum going up that ladder. Pinning him to the ground unfortunately wasn't an option, so she gave a small approving nod.

"You're competitive, so I propo—suggest—a contest."

She sniffed to communicate her disapproval. An exceptionally Petunia gesture, which would amuse him, if nothing else.

"Your last plan ended in disaster, Evans," he said. "You can't be picky about mine."

"My second to last plan ended in disaster," she corrected. "This plan is brilliant."

Because it was brilliant, wasn't it? To be up here, in her gable tower, enjoying a quiet breakfast with James Potter and his idiotic smirk…. It proved, surprisingly, its own sort of perfection. "Tell me about your contest, James."

"Stories," he drawled.

"Stories?"

"Yeah—see who has the best stories."

"You do," she said.

"I don't think so, Evans. I think you've got stories to tell, and I know I want to hear them."

"So you can one-up them?"

"No."

She watched him expectantly.

"All right, a bit. I do want to hear them, though."

With a sharp pang, Lily remembered sitting by the fireplace with her father and listening to him describing adventures he'd been on, or that he'd take her on someday. Storytelling was an art. And while Lily's instincts were…frazzled, fractured…they were clear in this: James Potter could tell a good story. She wouldn't believe a damn word he said, obviously… But wasn't that half the fun?

Stories: not as adventurous as lighting things on fire, but with less potential for damage. Except for her stomach, perhaps, if the twists it was doing at his smile were any indication.

"The rules?" she asked. Because she knew damn well better than to dive in without covering parameters.

"Take turns posing a question," he said, not missing a beat, "which the other will answer first."

"Until?"

"We tire of it, or an hour, whichever comes first."

"Stakes?"

"Something interesting, yeah? That sister of yours have a cherished possession the loser could nick? A favorite tapestry or something?"

"Not—really. Dursley loves that chandelier, and we already destroyed that."

"You more than me, Evans, and they already repaired it."

"It was a joint effort, Potter, and they had to use glass, not crystal."

"A job well done, then."

"Right. Oh—there is a vase actually. In the drawing room."

"On the mantle? The gold one? I saw it last night."

Lily nodded. More white than gold, but that didn't matter. 'Vase' was a generous term for the wedding gift bestowed upon her sister and brother-in-law by Dursley's cow of a sister. Lily wasn't proud of the fact that she'd accidentally-on-purpose knocked the vase off its spot on the mantle on numerous occasions. She didn't regret it, either.

Unfortunately the damned thing proved to be just as stubborn as herself. Perhaps the Dursleys could marry it off to James Potter.

"That's—perfect," he said, turning sideways and stretching his legs out. He leaned back on his hands and leveled that boyish smile at her. "Ladies first, Evans."

That was easy enough, wasn't it?

"Most adventurous thing you've ever done," she said.

"You mean reckless?" He crossed his legs at the ankle. Made himself comfortable, didn't he?

Lily mirrored his position—and his easy grin. "Isn't it one and the same?"

"Yes," James said, "and as such, I'd better tell you about the time I nearly burnt the forest by my school down…"

He launched into a ridiculous tale involving a flock of swans, a runaway carriage, a letter crossed in the post, and accidental illicit dealings with a cloaked woman who reeked of spoiled fish. Even a cave troll, which Lily was sure he'd included for her benefit. If half, or even a quarter of it was true, she'd be damned, but it was a brilliant bit of storytelling.

Except for the bits about his friends—those rang true.

They came to life as he talked, describing their personalities, quirks, respective senses of humor. A longing welled inside Lily for that kind of easy comradery, or for the intimacy of know a group of people so well.

She countered with her own true tale, no embellishment necessary. Her own harrowing escape, by the light of a full moon, down a ladder tied from bed curtains. If anything, she cut out the nastier bits, to keep things light and all that. She remembered to include bribing the stable boys with rum, sneaking out in a grocer's barrel, and meeting a proper smuggler—Snape, her childhood friend—at a fork in the river.

"How far did you get?" James asked.

"Oh, I got held up in the woods outside Pembroke."

"Oi. Vagrants live in those woods—Riddle's gang."

"We've met," Lily said tersely. Her tone invited no further inquiry.

And yet he missed it, perked, and said, "Now that's a story."

"A different story, I think. That bit I just told was far more adventurous than getting pissed with your mates and setting fire to a hollowed out log."

He looked sheepish, despite his best efforts not to, which confirmed that her synopsis was on point.

"So, tell the rest of it then," he said.

She shook her head. "You need to ask the right question, Potter. Your go."

Lily learned something of James Potter's determination, for he spent the next hour squandering his turns, asking every weirdly specific question he could dream up in order to catch her.

Each time, she thankfully found a technicality that kept her from giving herself away.

To "a time when you were trapped in the woods and got out," she explained that when she was seven, she lost her path. She swam out into the meandering creek that divided the woods and floated back into town on a hollowed out log.

And she answered "that time you escaped from vagrants" by describing—much to his amusement—her dramatic exit from their first supper.

However, when he asked offhandedly that she describe the biggest scrape she'd ever escaped from, she could think of nothing else. Because that was it, wasn't it, aside from this? Her skirts were six inches deep in this mess—here. Him. Their two day deadline loomed ever in her mind. She had no idea how this madness would end. Moreover, how she wanted it to end.

So: the kidnapping.

What her story lacked in humor, it made up for in intrigue, and Lily held James's full attention as she spoke. She withheld nothing, picking up where she'd left off: climbing out of the river, half-drowned and sopping wet. The ambush. Realizing Snape's betrayal, how unbelievably naïve she'd been not to believe the rumors about him. She'd been captured, blindfolded, bound. Marched through the woods for hours.

To hear Riddle's gang talk, they'd fancied themselves heroes, like Robin bloody Hood. As if the thieving and kidnapping was justified because it was means to an end, easy financing for their higher aspirations.

Like Robin Hood, they'd built up a permanent settlement in the deep woods.

They'd forced her to write her own damned ransom note.

Something shifted in Lily as her story unraveled. She forgot about the contest, or her father's tips, or to make it entertaining. Because although James Potter was an excellent storyteller, yes, he proved to be an even better listener. He stopped lounging to lean forward, and he listened intently to her every word. He didn't even interrupt—a bloody miracle.

Or something.

For reasons unknown, she found herself confessing things she hadn't told even Mary: That she still hadn't forgiven herself for not putting up more of a fight. Or how truly beautiful the woods were. And it was a pity, because she might've enjoyed living there under different circumstances. Even how she'd ingratiated herself to the women, helping with menial chores. She never complained, in case it paid off later.

The bastards didn't hurt her, yet they threatened it plenty, and it was enough.

She withheld nothing. Except, perhaps, for how scared she'd truly been, as one week turned into two, and their irritation grew. Her tone must have nonetheless given her away.

James held a hand up. "Evans…you don't—don't go on, if it's upsetting you. You don't have to tell it."

"Of course I don't," she said, "and it's not."

He opened his mouth to speak, and closed it, waiting for her nod before asking. "So, then, how'd you get away? You've got all your fingers."

A shit attempt at humor, sure. She appreciated it all the same.

"Well, I forfeited my mother's bracelet. They didn't dare touch me—the ransom, you know."

"I'm sorry."

She lifted her shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "One of the women took a fancy to it. And maybe she harbored some pity for me? I'm not sure. In the end, Dursley wouldn't pay the ransom, so I was useless to them. They wouldn't kill me, and they couldn't just release me. And I wouldn't stay, not willingly. So she convinced them—somehow—to trade my bracelet for freedom."

"You're serious?"

"I know. I don't know how she convinced them, because it wasn't near enough of a price to pay—"

"No, not that—you were a hostage, and Dursley wouldn't pay to release you?" he said, nearly shouting toward the end. And he wore that same indignant expression he'd had last night when she'd told him about dining in her room.

"Are you really surprised?"

"No," he said. "Yes. He's an even bigger bastard than I thought, is all. And that's saying something…"

"He'd only pay to get rid of me, Potter," Lily said coolly. "Not a pence to bring me back."

Whatever his retort, it died on his lips. He flushed red and looked away.

So. The Dursleys had paid the Potters for her. How much? Did it matter? Tears threatened to prickle at the back of her eyes, and she blinked rapidly in an effort to keep them there.

"Sorry," she said quietly, desperate to break the tension, "this was supposed to be fun."

They sat quietly for a long moment, with him staring out the window, while she stared at the blanket.

James mastered himself first: "Want me to lighten things up? I could tell you my worst scrape."

Relief coursed through Lily, and she didn't hesitate. "Yes, please."

His story rang—not True, exactly, but truer than the others.

She found it easy enough to believe that they'd stolen a boat, intent on exploring an island rumored to be used by rum smugglers. Of course they drank more than what was good for them. To pass the boredom, they'd started fishing.

With pistols.

Because of course they bloody would.

Except Sirius shot a hole clean through the bottom of the boat.

Water came in, but not enough, James was adamant in pointing out, that they thought themselves in real danger. Believing this, they did what any group sensible, responsible boys would do in a leaking boat: stuffed the hole with a shirt, drank some more, and fell asleep. Though Lily suspected it had been more like passing out than falling asleep, she didn't press the issue.

Point was, when they roused, it was because they were half submerged and sinking fast. Their oars and backup oars had floated away, so they abandoned ship and swam for the island.

She doubted the bit about the sharks, but it made her laugh all the same.

Peter managed to save the bread and cheese, and they combed the tiny island for provisions—berries and a small stream. True to the map they'd been given, they located some old rum bottles stowed away in a cave. It tasted like piss, yes, but as they were still half-inebriated from their morning's adventure, they drank it anyway.

Their fun—exploring the island, dividing it into territories, playing war—lasted about as long as it took for their hangovers to set in.

Next day, their food ran out, and then the rum, and then things looked bleak. James had just been chosen as a sacrifice to feed the others, when a rescue party, led by his father, came and saved them all.

After a few clarifying questions from Lily, the full truth came tumbling out. The island was just offshore and completely visible from his summer estate. His parents had watched the whole thing: the boys stealing the boat before dawn; their excessive drinking; them shooting their pistols at random.

As punishment for stealing and sinking the boat, his mother had decided to let them sit for a few days.

"That's a bit—harsh. No?"

"Nah, Mum just prefers practical punishments. Befitting the crime, and all that."

"Was that what she was doing last night?"

"Exactly. It's the only way I learn."

"And what did you learn last night?"

That was a dangerous question, wasn't it? It had escaped her mouth before she could stop herself. It hung heavy in the air between them. Only for a moment, though, until he laughed.

"We need a bigger pillow barrier, Evans."

Lily bit her lip and repressed a laugh. Not very well, mind, but well enough that she didn't lose herself to a laughing fit. Oh, it was time to change the bloody subject.

"Your favorite place in the world?" she asked. It wasn't her turn, but she wasn't quite ready to talk yet.

"The island."

"Which island?"

"Damn, Evans, haven't you been listening?"

"The island where you were marooned and nearly met your tragic, premature demise? That island?"

He nodded solemnly.

"You returned?"

A mischievous smirk split his face. "I might have—embellished—a bit, in the interest of livening things up. That was about our hundredth expedition there. We had a proper fort and everything. We planned the boat sinking in advance. Remus had never been, you see, and we wanted to make it a grand adventure for him. So we made the map, and—"

"The provisions?"

"Were ours, yes. Marauder provisions."

"You bastard," Lily said with no measurable conviction. "I nearly felt genuine sympathy for you."

"Nearly?"

"Only for a moment."

"Well, you're welcome for saving you from a terrible fate, then. We couldn't have that."

"No."

"And you?"

"Hm?" She was terribly distracted, because he had saved the morning, hadn't he? They'd made it several hours without setting anything on fire, and it hadn't been necessary to come up with a new plan.

He was still grinning at her, and she'd been right about the stomach twists after all.

"Your favorite place?" he asked again.

"Oh. Well, that's a bit personal, isn't it?"

"Really? After the kidnapping story? You can't expect me to answer, Evans, then refuse to do the same."

"All right," she said, feeling as though she ought to have known better. "Well, in the woods outside the village where I grew up—"

"Do all of your stories involve trees?"

"Do all of your stories involve getting pissed with your mates, illicit dealings, and property damage?"

"Some combination thereof, usually, yes." He waved a hand. "Proceed."

"Right, well. You had to cross these stepping stones to cross the creek."

"The one you floated down?"

"The very one," Lily replied. "After that day, Petunia wouldn't return. So I was able to go there alone fairly regularly. I'd skive off lessons. The path circled around a little pond, and a tree." She added as an afterthought, "There was a swing."

"A swing?"

"Yes, a swing."

He stared at her blankly.

"You know, hanging from a tree."

"And?"

"You—sit on it, and, um—I'm sorry, you've never been on a swing before?"

He shook his head.

"Right. Well, you sit on it, and you've got to—you're joking, Potter."

He raised his hands defensively. "I'm not," he said, "I swear."

She couldn't find a trace of ill humor in his voice. He looked—fascinated.

How could she describe the mechanics of swinging? Lily closed her eyes, felt the rope in her hands, the grass under her bare feet... "You sit on it—the board—and stand on your tiptoes. Lean back, kick forward, stretch your legs, all the way out. On the back swing, tuck in, and lean forward. The best part is jumping—"

She made the mistake of looking at him. His hand covered his mouth, but his eyes—crinkling at the edges, and positively delighted—gave him away.

"Oh, you absolute bastard," she said, swiping a kick at his shin, "you are teasing me."

"Yeah," he said. "But only because I've never met anyone so, erm…passionate…about swinging before."

She refused to be embarrassed. "Well I miss it! It's been too long. It's not so easy to put one up, you know. I've managed three times, but she's them taken down within the week."

"Why?"

She pulled out her favorite imitation of her sister. "Swinging is conduct completely unbecoming a lady, Lily, sticking your ankles out for the world to see. You aren't nine anymore…"

"Fuck her," he spat, but then he caught her scowl. "Sorry."

"No, it's all right…you aren't wrong."

"So, a swing is your favorite place."

"The swing, and the magnificent climbing tree it belongs to—this massive oak, thicker than I can wrap my arms around. And the pond is home to several swans. It's the whole bit. But now that I think about it, Petunia's absence might have been my favorite part..."

She drifted off, and an easy silence stretched between them.

She'd never see her pond again, probably, but she might see his island. Did she want to?

She glanced at the clock—three hours had passed. Appalling, wasn't it, how easy they got on when the rest of it was stripped away? Pity, because the rest of it couldn't be stripped away. And this—him, them—was so much more complicated than enjoying a few stories.

Suddenly, the room was too small. She needed Mary. A strong cup of Mary's tea wouldn't hurt, either.

"So—who won, then?" she asked. "And what about the vase?"

* * *

He'd won. She had to retrieve the vase, but he was too damned distracted to savor the victory.

She hadn't argued.

It vexed him that she'd ended things so abruptly. That she was so keen to get the sodding vase, was keen to get away from him. He understood, sure: their enmity had been replaced with something…different. And whatever this new thing was, it felt hazardous. Confusing. Part of him was relieved that she felt it too, but it nevertheless vexed him.

Perhaps that's why he'd insisted he tag along—to irritate her. She hadn't objected, but she was being a right shrew about the details.

As in, she insisted there be some.

"We can't just go nab it, like common thieves," she said. "What's the fun in that?"

She wasn't wrong. And were she anyone else, he would've pored over every minute detail, ensuring the backup plan had a backup plan, etc. But, to her unspoken point, the room was stifling. He could do with some fresh air. With burning through this pent-up energy. With smelling something else besides the lingering remnants of her perfume from the night before.

The sooner they escaped these cramped quarters, the better.

Without Remus here to help sort matters, James kept up with the self-honesty bit. In that vein, he shouldn't have cared about her expressive eyebrow, or how her angry blush differed from her embarrassed flush, but he did. Even her bloody scowl was fantastic. Also, he enjoyed seeing her flustered—especially when he was the cause.

"Victory is fun," he said. "Smashing vases is fun. Talking about it for two hours? Not as much."

Evans flushed angrily, her mouth set in a thin line. He was partial to that, too.

"It's my castle, Potter, so we're doing this on my terms." She closed the hamper lid and smoothed out a wrinkled, worn piece of parchment. "Do you know what this is?"

"Our dinner menu?"

"No—my favorite possession."

James muttered, "How many favorite possessions do you have?"

"The piano was my favorite," she said, all prim. "This is second best."

"What is it, then?"

"See for yourself."

James leaned forward. Even upside down, he could see it was comprehensive, or nearly. As he'd dabbled in cartography a time or two, he could appreciate the craftsmanship of the thing.

"You made this?" he asked.

She nodded, clearly proud of her handiwork. "Took seven revisions. It's extremely accurate, and extremely useful."

He didn't doubt her. "Let's go then."

"Stop being so impatient." She folded the map and slipped it into her pocket.

"Stop being so difficult."

"I suppose," she said, "that you think you can do a better job of retrieving the vase?" Her tone—light, bordering cheerful—set him on high alert.

Of course he did. Nick the map, and he'd be set. He wasn't idiotic enough to say it, though. "That's not the point, Evans. You lost."

"We should both go after the vase."

"We are," James reminded her, "just as soon as you—"

"No." She held up a hand. "I mean…we ought to go separately."

That was—intriguing. Right? Could be fun. Distracting. Interesting. Except—

"You've got some advantage, Evans," he said. "This is, as you said, your castle."

"Are you, James Potter, mischief maker, sneak extraordinaire, Marauder, who can purportedly cheat his way out of any predicament, too intimidated to steal an inanimate object from an unguarded, unlocked room?"

That was foul play, and she knew it. She cocked her head a tiny bit sideways, and flashed that same awful-perfect-half-smile. Damn it to hell, beating her would be satisfying. James rolled up his sleeves.

"Terms?" he asked.

"Get the vase."

"Reward?"

"The satisfaction of besting the other?" she tried. James shook his head. "My secret bottle of mead."

"And?"

Lily frowned at him, deliberating. At length, she said, "The blanket tonight."

James was unsure which excited him more—the blanket, or that they'd be sharing a room again tonight. Unsure if he could speak, he nodded.

Lily stood abruptly—as much as the room allowed—and he quickly followed suit.

"You lose this, Potter, and I'll be forced to murder you."

"Stop threatening to murder me, Evans. You would've done ages ago, if you meant it."

"We've only known each other two days."

He flashed her a grin. "Exactly. Ages."

"Prick."

She handed him the map, but he dropped it during the transfer, and they both bent down to retrieve it.

"Time limit?" he asked, stuffing it into his pocket.

"Six o'clock." She manipulated a lever, and the trapdoors released.

He checked the clock. "That's only five hours away."

"You'd best get moving, then," she said, smirking as she dropped onto the ladder. "You'll be wanting to find your mate, no?" He leaned over the edge to watch her descent. From halfway down, she paused and looked up at him. "Once your nerves allow you to follow, Potter, you can push the bottom stone in to reset everything."

With that, she hopped off the ladder and headed down the hall. How unfair that she got all the cheeky, dramatic exits. He resolved to fix that, then hurried down the ladder as quickly as he dared.


	4. Selective realities

"Nice dress," Mary said, tearing her gaze from her stitching to frown at Lily.

This cozy little room, with bolts of luxurious fabrics fighting for purchase against every wall, tables overflowing with trimmings, and a half-dozen forms supporting dresses in various states of finish, served as the dress-maker's quarters. Here, Mary spent the majority of her waking hours earning her keep.

Mary tugged the dress she'd been altering off her work table and motioned for her to sit. Lily hopped up on the table's edge, letting her legs swing freely, and found herself at a loss for words—she'd been so relieved to get away from Potter that she'd neglected to sort a strategy for enlisting Mary's help.

Lily eyed Mary's current assignment. "I could say the same for you. Didn't you finish that last month?"

"I did indeed," Mary said through a barely concealed smile. "It's too tight."

"No—"

"Yes. The excuse, of course, is that I made the bodice too small… I don't dare contradict her—"

"Of course not."

"So I've got to let all these seams out."

"While I'm sorry for your extra labor, Mare, that's—"

"Hilarious, I know, which is why I shared. But never mind me, Lily Evans, how did the consumma—?"

* * *

"Do not, upon pain of my fist in your stomach, finish that sentence, Padfoot."

"Why are you here, Prongs?"

"I need your help."

"No," Sirius said flatly, returning his attention to his novel.

James clenched his fist in an effort to keep from snatching it from his friend's grasp and chucking it into the fire. Time to change tack, then.

"Mischief, Padfoot," he tempted. "Mayhem."

Sirius lowered his book infinitesimally and peered at James. "Proceed."

* * *

"Why?" Mary asked, after Lily had outlined the general idea. "Is this some sort of sexual thing?"

"No," Lily lied. "It's about honor!"

Mary eyed her skeptically, pressed her lips together, and returned to her stitching.

* * *

"Don't you dare invoke Marauder honor, Prongs."

"I'm desperate."

Sirius gave James a look of utmost revulsion. "Yes, and it's distasteful."

* * *

"Which vase do you intend to target?" Mary asked.

"The one in the drawing room."

"On the mantle? That horrid thing from the walrus?"

"The very one."

Mary cringed, no doubt reliving the long, hellish days preceding Marge's last visit, when Petunia had forced them to polish it—and all the other finery—until their arms nearly fell off.

"If it makes a difference," Lily offered, "I'll let you be the one to smash it to pieces."

With a hearty laugh, Mary set down her work. "I'm in."

* * *

"Vases don't catch fire." Sirius shrugged. "Pass."

"You can set something else on fire," James promised.

Sirius perked, a hound that had just found a scent.

* * *

Lily had always possessed a knack for knowing precisely how far she could push without being expulsed from the premises—the threat of eviction had, until this point, kept her in line. Not well, mind, but well enough: though she might've set tapestries on fire, she'd never burned the manor to the ground.

How wonderful it was to be freed from such pesky restrictions.

She was out, gone in two days' time, and it was in this spirit that she poured her many frustrations into crafting a perfect, foolproof, destructive plan. And it was bloody brilliant, although certain bits would admittedly be difficult to execute. One such bit—their first phase—fell to Mary. Mary was less than pleased about it.

"Are you sure we aren't crossing a line here?" Mary asked for the fourth time as Lily finished braiding her hair.

"We are," Lily assured her. "Several."

"And is that wise?"

"Wise—no. Necessary? Yes."

"If you're going to quote that 'enemies and allies' nonsense, save your breath," Mary said, reaching behind her to elbow Lily's hip.

"Don't be cross with me just because you're nervous."

Mary might have been better suited for their first task, that didn't make the prospect any less daunting. Lily couldn't bring herself to begrudge Mary her nervousness. And so, when Mary asked with uncharacteristic timidity if Lily was certain this was the only way, Lily patted her shoulder and said, "Yes, love. It has to be her."

"And how do we know they aren't acting as we speak?"

"Potter's an opportunist," Lily reasoned, "and we have the logistical advantage. He'll wait."

"If you say so."

Lily knew so—she'd been making a study of him, after all. She considered it prudent to not mention as much and invite doubt. Or worse, a series of Mary's probing questions.

"Our first phase is simple, Mare, but everything hinges upon your flawless execution." She cast a meaningful glance at her co-conspirator. "Just—lie in wait until they're in place before making your move. And don't forget—"

"We've been over this four times. I understand the plan. I'm just—not keen on the particulars."

"You'll do wonderfully."

Mary sighed and squared her shoulders. "I'd better, haven't I?"

With a nod, Lily pointed to the door. "Now go, no more procrastinating."

Mary said in a singsong, "Just remember, Lily…"

"All my plans turn to shit, I know. Now out." Lily shoved her toward the door.

"I do love you when you're bossy."

"I know you do."

Mary suddenly spun to face her. "I'll wager Potter fancies it, too, yes?"

Lily offered a rude hand gesture, to which Mary blew a kiss in response. She straightened her dress one final time, and, with a cheerful wink, headed out the door.

* * *

"Explain again, Prongs, why we don't just go and nab it?"

James looked up from the map, running an absent-minded hand through his hair. "She's got limitless connections, Padfoot, and about a dozen ways to smuggle it out undetected."

Sirius crossed his arms. "All right, then what will their move be?"

"Tawdry Tortoise, knowing her."

"And do you?"

James shrugged. Though Sirius eyed him critically, he didn't press the point. This was James's mission, after all, and they mutually understood Sirius's investment in a successful outcome was minimal. In fact, the potential for failure surely enticed Sirius as much as the potential for mayhem.

"So," Sirius mused, "say they do the Tawdry Tortoise."

James nodded.

"They'll wait for eyes on them before moving?"

"They will."

"Right. Then we find out where, and adapt from there?"

"Exactly, which gives you enough time to arrange a Squeaking Squirrel."

Sirius tapped his chin, thoughtful. "Stable boy or page?"

"Either," James said. Sirius picked up the map, and was halfway to the door when James changed his mind. "No—stable boy. They'll be less attached to the girls, maybe—"

"—and easier to buy off, yes. And our target?"

James held up his second finger: Mary. They'd long ago learned the importance of nonverbal communication. Thwart eavesdroppers, and all that.

Sirius frowned at the map. "This is accurate?"

"The one she gave me isn't," James said. "I nicked the proper one from her pocket on my way out the door."

Sirius gave an approving chuckle, then pulled his watch out. James chided himself—he'd nearly forgotten about synchronizing their watches. When he reached into his pocket, however, he came up empty.

Damn her.

* * *

Anxious for something to do in Mary's absence, Lily's turned over Potter's timepiece over in her hand.

Letting him snatch the proper map had been the decent thing to do, given that she'd handed him an incomplete draft to begin with. And while his pickpocket skills were impressive, her smaller hands had allowed her to rifle through his pockets undetected.

A fine watch it was—gold, heavy, unquestionably more valuable than anything she'd ever possessed. He had a bloody stag intricately engraved on the cover. Not odd by itself, except that someone had carved a crude pair of glasses over it, rendering the entire effect ridiculous. Curiosity got the better of her, and she pried the back cover off.

On a plate covering the clockworks, she found an inscription: "Prongs, to replace the one we ruined." No signature, but the "we" undoubtedly referred to his mates.

She'd have to ask him about the whole business later.

After she'd finished indulging in her victory, of course.

* * *

James frowned at the diagram he'd spent the last half hour sketching, and tweaked it slightly. Satisfied, finally, he became absorbed in his many lists, scrawling occasional coded notes as he saw fit. Too soon, he heaved a heavy sigh and threw his quill down.

No point plotting further until Padfoot returned.

He had forty-five minutes left, if the damned clock was accurate—which he fucking doubted. Another sigh. James settled into his chair, determined to wait it out.

* * *

Thirty minutes had elapsed since Mary's departure, and thirty remained until Lily expected her return.

She did not in any respect doubt Mary's ability, but there were too many factors outside Mary's direct control for Lily to properly relax. And this, Phase One, was supposed to be the easy part.

Lily's temperament was ill-suited for sitting idly, for waiting. For fretting.

Desperate to occupy herself, she pulled Petunia's gown onto her lap and picked up where Mary had left off.

* * *

Patience had never been his strong suit, was the thing, and another was the watch. Not just the watch, mind. Only she knew he'd taken the map. She had therefore let him take the map. And if she'd done that much, what else did she have in store for him?

Sirius slammed the door open, interrupting James's reverie. He was fifteen minutes early.

"That woman of yours is a right fucking piece of work, Prongs!"

"What happened?" he asked. "Stable boy prove incorruptible?"

"Settled for half price, mate. His services weren't required."

A dozen scenarios flitted through James's mind, none pleasant. He rose to his feet.

"I visited Mum's rooms for cover," Sirius continued, "while I waited for him to tail her and report back. Thought I'd test the waters, you know, see how much trouble you were in."

"And?"

Sirius sliced a grim hand across his neck. "Choppy, mate. She's dead furious—"

"Not Mum, Padfoot. What happened with Evans?"

* * *

Mary arrived on schedule at half two with a vase tucked under one arm, and a small basket in the other. Lily set down the dress—what was left of it, anyway—and assisted her with the door.

"Who's the mark?" she asked, removing the vase from Mary's grasp.

"That fool, Stebbins."

"And who do we have tailing Stebbins?"

"Davies."

Lily beamed. "Excellent. And your timing?"

"Impeccable," Mary said. But she'd hesitated. Only a slight hesitation, yes, but it was enough to stutter Lily's heart.

She looked sharply at her companion. "Mary?"

"Hm?" Mary deftly avoided meeting Lily's gaze by cleaning the vase rim with her sleeve.

"Out with it."

After a pause, Mary said quickly, as if doing so might prevent Lily from hearing: "Mr.-Black-was-there."

"Where?"

Mary sighed heavily. "In the room, when the delivery was made."

* * *

"So I'm at Mum's, and who walks in but Mary—"

"No. She didn't."

"Oh yes, she did," Sirius said, scowling. "She strolled in carrying a hideous vase overstuffed with fresh flowers. She said Lily knew rhododendrons were Mum's favorite, and sent them with love."

"Clever." Light-headed, James needed to sit. He needed a bloody cup of tea. "You didn't try to take it, did you?"

Sirius shook his head vehemently. "Self-preservation kicked in, mate. I took my leave, bid them both a lovely afternoon, and ran."

James nodded. He'd have done the same.

Sirius slapped his shoulder, then rang the bell for tea.

* * *

Lily stood, overworking her lower lip, contemplating this development.

"Well, that's brilliant," she said finally, offering Mary a broad, encouraging smile. "We couldn't have planned it better, really. That'll give us—"

"—more time on the back end, yes." Mary looked visibly relieved. "But it was a deviation, and I know how you feel about those…"

* * *

He expected deviations, so it wasn't that.

James sank heavily into his chair, and Sirius mirrored the movement in his own. They sat in silence, sipping their tea, each pondering this horrible twist.

Only—this was unprecedented. He'd underestimated Evans. Low blow, using a bloke's mother like that.

"What in the hell are we going to do, Prongs?" Sirius asked, when only dredges remained.

Padfoot was fully invested now—outwitting their mother, or attempting to, was something of a personal quest for him. Even that proved only a minor comfort to James, given the Herculean task before them.

"No chance we can go overt?" James said weakly.

"It's Mum, Prongs! She knows our tricks. And she saw me eyeing the vase, I know it."

"Damn it." James upended the ottoman with his toe. It merely toppled over with a pathetic sort of muffled thump. Fitting. "That devious little—"

"I know. Impressive, though."

"Not the point, Padfoot."

"I did ask if she had afternoon plans—"

"Of course not," James said, "she'd have retired for the afternoon."

Sirius voiced what they were both thinking: "We are completely fucked."

* * *

"They are completely fucked." Lily found it impossible to keep the glee from her voice, and why should she? It was only Mary, after all.

"It is a master stroke," Mary said.

"It should occupy them for a few hours, at least."

"And in the meantime?"

Lily picked up the stack of papers she'd started on. "We plot."

"Oh!" Mary set the basket on the table between them. "Minerva sends her love."

Lily understood 'love' to mean 'food' and was not disappointed. "You know," she said, between mouthfuls of warm muffin, "this is my third consecutive afternoon plotting."

Mary patted her shoulder. "Exhausting work, being a deviant, isn't it?"

"You've no idea," Lily said cheerfully, then helped herself to another bite.

* * *

"I can't go see her," James said.

"Obviously. She's furious with you, as I said, and suspicious to boot."

James had figured as much. "Dad?"

Sirius shook his head regretfully. "Hunting until dinner."

"Shit."

* * *

Lily inspected the detailed illustration they'd made of the third floor.

"Best as I can figure, Mary, there are three ways into that room."

"Agreed."

"We've got to make their moves difficult, and we've got to ensure their exits are covered."

* * *

"What are you thinking?" Sirius asked.

They sprawled over their armchairs, staring at the ceiling.

"Palpitant Pigmy," James said half-heartedly. Sirius made no reply, which was answer enough. "Then what are you thinking?"

"Bastardly Badger."

James scoffed. "Where'd we get those supplies on such short notice?"

"Felicitous Flamingo?"

"We'd need Wormy here."

"Right. Fallacious Flamingo, then."

"We'd need Moony for that, and we can't manufacture an eclipse in four hours."

James looked at the clock. Three hours, twenty-two minutes.

Damn it.

Sirius hurled a biscuit at him. "Stop moping at that sodding clock, Prongs, and let's figure this out."

* * *

"Do you think they're still despairing?" Mary wondered idly.

"I certainly hope so," Lily said. "Either way, we'd better implement our second phase before they make their move."

"Lil, you have to go see her."

"Do I really, though?"

"Can you think of a better diversion?"

"No."

"Then there's no other way—"

"—around it. I know."

This was another nasty bit, and for unique reasons—every unique reason—it fell upon Lily. She and Mary watched each other for a long moment.

"She might murder you," Mary said.

Lily couldn't determine if she was jesting, or warning her—perhaps it was a mixture of the two.

"She's too close to getting rid of me for her to risk murder now, Mare." She feigned a light, airy, tone; Mary's look was entirely too kindly for her to believe she'd pulled it off.

"At least he's out hunting for the day…"

"Yes," Lily said darkly, "which means you might run into him in the garden, so be careful, yes?"

"I will. And you appeal to her sensibilities."

"I shall. And you remember the—"

"—schedule. I know."

Lily let her reminders drop.

She gave the room one last look-around—their false plans lay in plain sight, and the decoy vase lay half concealed beneath a stack of fabric. Satisfied, she and Mary made their exit, then headed in opposite directions.

* * *

"A Deflective Duck could give you enough time, Prongs."

"No. A Denudate Duck, conversely, when paired with the Palpitant Pigmy, might just do the trick."

"Fine." Sirius threw his hands in the air. "But I'm not running point."

James gaped at Sirius in disbelief. He'd fully anticipated Sirius running point, and the arse bloody well knew it. Sirius crossed his arms. This or nothing, then.

"You'd damn well better ensure the rope is secure this time," James said. "We don't want a repeat of—"

Sirius leveled his best shit-eating grin, the one he'd learned from James. "That only happened once, and I apologized and everything."

James made no answer—they didn't have time for the same old argument.

"Let's get to work, mate," Sirius said." We'll have to start now if we've any hope of finishing before five."

* * *

"—not to mention the impertinence, Lily! How dare you come here and ask me, after ruining half of my dining room, and after that dress, and after stealing my—"

It had been a damned miracle that Petunia had entertained a private audience with her, but she had. Lily had lost no time in asking for her favor. And now, her sister's response was going, well, exactly as she'd anticipated.

"Never mind, sister, dear. So sorry to have bothered you."

Lily stood and gave Petunia a hasty curtsy before stomping toward the door.

She shouldn't have given up this easy, but James Potter winning was less important than enduring this nonsense for another hour.

"Lily, wait."

Lily should have opened the door, stepped through, and maybe slammed it shut behind her for good measure. She should have, but instead she turned back around and faced her sister. She always turned back around, didn't she?

"What do you even want them for?" Petunia asked wearily.

"Marital bonding."

"And if I don't let you have them? Will you take them anyway?"

"No," Lily lied. Her permission wasn't necessary, but it would save time. "But I'm here for two more days, Petunia, and a lot can happen in two more days."

"So you intend to continue this rampage of destruction?"

Lily smiled sweetly. "I'll destroy a lot less if you give me what I'm asking for."

"Blackmail doesn't become you," Petunia said, her cheeks staining crimson.

Rich, coming from her, wasn't it?

"You owe me, Petunia. This is the least you could do."

Petunia rose from her chair, squaring off against Lily, even though they were on opposite sides of the room. "I owe you. I owe you? After I've provided you with a bed for two years—"

"A lumpy bed, you mean, and for two miserable years."

"—and bent over backwards to provide you with a good home—"

"You got rid of me, is what you did, Petunia, no better than kicking me out, which you're about to do anyway if I don't go with them. Not to mention holding my best friend as coercion—"

"You leaving is no less than what we both want, and you know it."

"Whatever you console yourself with so you can sleep at night."

Again, Lily turned to leave, and again, Petunia called her back.

"You want all of them?"

Damn her.

"You can blame Potter, Petunia, and then they'll be off your hands. Just like I'll soon be. And then you can decorate your goddamn mantles however you please."

Petunia reminded Lily very much of their mother in the way she pressed her palms together, deep in thought.

What would their mother think, if she could her daughters now? She'd have bawled them both out for being ridiculous, and she would have forced them to stitch an embroidery sampler together—an activity they both loathed—until she was satisfied they could work together peacefully again.

If she'd have lived, things never would've deteriorated to this point…

"You can take the damn things," Petunia said at last. "Consider it a wedding present."

Lily stared for a moment, mouth agape, disbelieving that it had actually worked. Lily nodded, and decided to leave—for real, this time—before Petunia changed her mind. She had her fingers wrapped around the handle when her sister spoke again, so quietly that Lily nearly missed it.

"I'm pregnant, Lily."

Lily turned on the spot, an unbidden smile forming on her face. After so many attempts, Petunia was going to have a child—she'd yearned for this for so long—Lily was going to be an aunt—

"Congrat—" But the well-wishes died on her lips. As Lily studied the deep lines of her sister's frown, and the protective way her hands wrapped around her stomach…it all became startlingly clear.

"Oh," Lily said, taking a step backward. Her hand groped behind her for the door, or the wall—something, anything, to steady herself. "I see."

"It never would have worked, Lily," Petunia said, almost pleading, although she wouldn't meet Lily's now horrified gaze. "It's for the best, isn't it?"

Lily didn't answer. There was nothing she could say, nothing to say—at least, nothing short of the string of expletives she longed to hurl at her deluded, traitorous, good-for-nothing witch of a sister—

"I've lost two already," Petunia said, "you know that, and it's so—you're so— I need rest, and quiet…"

"Don't, Petunia. Just, don't—"

"And, well, you can't pretend that you want to be here, can you?"

For once, her sister offered the complete, unvarnished truth.

But in all the times Lily had envisioned finally hearing it, it had never felt like this.

"You're right," Lily said. "I don't want to be here at all."

She turned to leave, and this time, Petunia did not stop her.

* * *

"So, St—" James stopped, frowning at the boy on their threshold.

"Stebbins, sir," Stebbins said.

"Right. So, Stebbins. Where did they go, and what did they do?"

"Miss Evans—" Stebbins faltered at Sirius's head shake and corrected course. "I mean, target one was in the, erm, her sister's room, and then she came right back. I couldn't overhear what they said. And target Mary, I mean two, went out to the garden."

"The garden?"

"Yes."

James had seen her out in the garden, with Stebbins's friend trailing too closely behind to be anything like discrete. For the price they were paying, though, James couldn't complain.

"—and then she went to the kitchens."

"And?" Sirius asked, when Stebbins stopped talking.

"Well," Stebbins said, his eyes fixed on James. "Andrews isn't allowed in the kitchen, see, on account of something that happened last year. It wasn't even his fault, but Miss McGonagall won't budge, and by the time he found me, you see, she—Miss Mary—was gone, and—"

"You lost her?" Sirius said, folding his arms across his chest. "What you're saying is you lost her."

"Yes."

Fucking dammit. Pete was the best tail of all of them, but Pete wasn't here, so no sense in wasting time being pissy about it.

"Can I still have my money?"

"No," Sirius said, as James said, "Half."

James paid the boy, patted his shoulder a bit rougher than necessary, and then sent him on his bloody way.

* * *

"You're seven minutes late," Lily said, far more severely than she'd intended. She'd returned early, after all, and had been stewing for some time. "Sorry," she said quickly, though she didn't look up from her diagram. Were she to look up, Mary would pinpoint her misery in four seconds flat. "I'm,"—she searched for a believable excuse—"still recovering."

"Understandable, though I'm glad to see you've survived." Mary tilted her head. "Unless she murdered you, and you're an apparition?"

"Decidedly not."

Lily frowned at her papers, her frustration simmering to a slow boil, and threatening to spill over. Life as a spirit would be decidedly less complicated than this, wouldn't it? Were she to voice this, however, Mary would point out that Lily's current stressors were largely her undoing.

She hated when Mary was right.

"Grhmp," Mary said as she peeled off her many-layered costume. "I've no idea how the kitchen staff manages in these."

"Your packages were delivered?"

"Yes, without deviations. Except—Minerva was rather tetchy with me…"

"The cart?"

"Mhm."

The gravity of the situation dawned, and Lily finally tore her attention from the parchment. "How tetchy was she, Mary?"

"She refused to send biscuits, in order to, and I'm quoting here, 'impart upon you the immense depths of her displeasure.' She made me practice that line until I had it memorized."

"Nothing at all? Not even a crumb?"

Mary shook her head regretfully.

"Tragic." And it was—she'd been counting on those to sustain her through supper.

"Never mind that," Mary said, shoving aside the paper to hop up on the table. "You succeeded! However did you manage?"

Lily had practiced this, the lie she was going to tell Mary—the easiest version of the truth.

"I told her she could blame Potter, and I held my tongue during her highly unpleasant tirade."

"And how did you manage that?"

"I spent most of it imagining the look on Potter's face when he realizes we bested him."

Mary nudged Lily with her knee. "And you're certain this isn't a sexual th—" she teased, and stopped at Lily's murderous gaze. "Right. Changing topics… She must really despise the lot of them, yes?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"Absolutely," Mary said. "Now: out with it. What's really bothering you? You're positively glum."

Lily worried her lip, stopped—it was going to chap, if she wasn't careful—and settled for tugging on the end of her plait. She's rehearsed this, too. "They didn't raid the room, Mary. They didn't even try."

"Oh, good." Mary brightened. "I thought it was something serious."

Lily didn't return her grin.

"And why does this distress you, dear?"

"Isn't it obvious?" When Mary's blank stare intimated that it was not at all obvious, Lily explained, "If they didn't try, they aren't worried. If they aren't worried, then they have a strong, solid plan for getting into that room."

"Damn."

"Exactly."

"So, you've been staring at the diagram since I came in. What's their move?"

Lily had been staring at the diagram without absorbing any of it, but that didn't matter. Mary was back, and she'd figured out Potter's plan, and this madness would serve as a welcome distraction for the next several hours.

"The window. He'll go in through the window."

"That's mad, though—they'd have to climb down from the library."

"Precisely. The only option dramatic enough to appeal to Potter's idiotic sensibilities."

"How will they divert her attention?"

James Potter, grinning and holding a match aloft between his thumb and forefinger, sprang the forefront of her mind.

"The tapestry, just down the hall."

* * *

James reluctantly handed over his matches to Sirius. Two of them, anyway—he'd do well to keep one as a safeguard.

"How long will that give me?"

Sirius tapped his chin, mentally calculating the length of time the diversion would buy. "Ninety."

"I'll only need sixty."

* * *

"The deviants," Mary gasped. And to her credit, she sounded genuinely scandalized.

"Yes," Lily agreed, though the prospect secretly thrilled her.

"Could we attempt a Black Sam?"

"Those are my father's books, Mary, so no…but could we manage a Charles Vane?"

"We have morals, Lily."

"Oh, all right." Lily turned Potter's timepiece over in her pocket. "What about a Jolly Roger?" Mary cringed, yet Lily was undeterred. "Well, why not? Davies could suffice, although where we'd find a net on such short notice…"

"Lily…"

"You don't think it'd work?"

"Well… It could, if we used mice…"

"Excellent. Davies could suffice, yes?"

"Lily."

"We're short on time, Mare. Save your moral objections until later, yeah?"

"It's not that…"

She ought to ask what Mary meant, but she wasn't interested in the answer, whatever it was. Now that they'd decided upon a proper course of action, her mind was occupied sorting strategy.

"I'll be back shortly," Lily said. "I think Meadows has a net." And she hurried out the door before Mary could raise a reasonable objection.

* * *

James pulled the rope taut, inspecting Sirius's handiwork. The knots were serviceable, sure. The length, on the other hand…

"What the hell is this, Black?"

"Sixteen feet of triple knotted rope, you arse," Sirius said. "Three feet longer than what's required, to assuage your baseless fears, so you're fucking welcome."

"Sixteen feet would be adequate, Padfoot, were I were only climbing one level. However, if you'd have paid any attention, I'm climbing two," James said, careful to speak slowly. Maximum condescension, and all that.

"You neglected to mention that, Prongs."

"I noted it right there." James waved a parchment in Sirius's face. "Honestly, mate, what is the bloody point of my lists if you don't bother reading them?"

Sirius snatched it from James's hand. "Where?"

James turned it sideways.

Sirius squinted. "Shit."

"We'll have to compensate, is all," James said. He headed to the door to Sirius's room, intent on stripping the bed. Sirius, guessing as much, impeded his path.

"Those sheets are my only consolation in this hellhole."

"So?"

"You can't have them."

"What am I supposed to do, then?"

"Swing and jump?"

James scratched his neck. "Too risky—four floors up as it is."

"Hell, Prongs, I was joking. Fuck you for forcing me to be the voice of reason here. It's not too late to run Deflective Duck."

"No!" James enjoyed risk, sure. But Deflective Duck? A dead man's wish. "I'll go fetch my own bloody sheets, then."

* * *

She crashed—literally crashed—into Potter as they rounded the same corner on the second floor.

Of course, she was knocked off her feet while his glasses hadn't even been knocked askew. She waited for him to move, perhaps extend a helping hand. However, he merely stood, unmoving, staring down at her as if she'd sprouted snakes from her head. Perhaps he was angry about the watch? With a grunt of frustration, Lily hauled herself to her feet.

"Mister Potter," she said, all crisp and businesslike.

"Evans." A curt nod, nothing more.

"Nice sheets."

"Nice net."

His jaw in that moment proved her bloody undoing, because it popped, or tensed—something. And that, along with the hair, and those exposed forearms, and that quirked eyebrow proved altogether more than she could handle.

Lily threw her net to the ground and fairly well charged him.

He was much too tall, even on her tiptoes, yet her hands found purchase on his collar and tugged him down. Her lips made short work of finding his.

Last night, she'd been unsure of how much had been the alcohol, versus the thrill of infuriating everyone that had made snogging him so fantastic, versus him.

Now she knew.

It was him. All him. Ten thousand percent him. And his hair, and his arms, wrapped around her, and his bloody fantastic lips.

That same feeling thrummed in her veins—landing the jump of a too-far stepping stone. Victory.

It was short lived, though, because he pulled away—too soon, much too soon. Like a desperate loon, she tried to pull him back down, but he rose to his full height and out of her reach. She ordered her eyes to open. When they obeyed, reluctantly, she found that he was glaring down at her.

"What the bloody hell was that for?"

Muddled, she couldn't work out whether he meant it as an honest question, or an accusation. He hadn't let her go—his hands still braced her hips. And his sheets, along with her net, lay discarded at their feet.

Your jaw, Potter. That's what. Since she couldn't very well say that, she lied.

"Footsteps," she breathed.

A pitiful lie, yes, but the best she could muster given his breath, hot and uneven on her temple.

He laughed—his entire body reverberated with it, shaking her—and his scowl morphed into a grin. That deviant, dangerous smirk. Something like triumph gleamed in his eyes, and she couldn't force herself to look away. Her lungs burned for want of oxygen. It should have been a cause for concern, this not breathing business, yet she was quite distracted with this otherbusiness of James backing her toward the nearest wall, step by torturous step.

He stopped only when she was firmly pressed against it, his hips tucked snuggly against hers.

She had time enough to register the small smattering of freckles on the bridge of his nose, and that his eyelashes were positively criminal, before they bumped noses and his mouth was on hers.

He'd been holding back, hadn't he? Because this was hard—punishing. Fantastic.

Was every kiss going to eclipse the last? Lily was hyper-aware of his stubble scraping her cheek, and his thumb slowly outlining the curve of her hip. How had it felt like they'd done this a hundred times before—as if they'd always been doing it? As if they could go on doing it indefinitely?

She could've missed the bloody stepping stone and drowned. And wouldn't have minded, if he went down with her.

The sodding clock chimed, bringing her to her senses. She pulled away.

They stood for a moment, inches apart, chests heaving, Lily gazing determinedly at his shoulder. He moved his hand from her hip and splayed it flat against the wall. His heart thump-thump-thumped beneath her hand.

"What was that for?" she asked, voice hoarser than she remembered giving it permission for.

"Footsteps," he breathed.

She risked a glance: His glasses were knocked askew, nearly clean off his face. His eyes were bright, and alert. Alive. Precisely how she felt. Not any kind of owl—just James.

"You're mad." She reached up and straightened his glasses.

He laughed, low and throaty, and she repressed a shudder. "You know, Evans. I reckon you're right."

"I should go."

He kissed her twice more—short, plucking strawberries off the vine—before taking a large step back. She managed a small, shaky step, praying that she wouldn't fall and give him the satisfaction of knowing he'd made her weak-kneed. As quickly as her legs would allow, she gathered her net and rounded the corner.

She was halfway down the corridor when he called after her.

"Evans?"

She turned on her heel, surprised to find him standing only a few feet away. He'd backtracked, to catch up to her.

He leveled that grin, and her legs weakened all over again. "See you in the library, yeah?"

She volleyed back a grin of her own and gave him a mock salute with her free hand. "Looking forward to it, Potter."

* * *

Upon his belated return, that bloody green handkerchief fell out of his sheets and tumbled onto the ground. James had deflected Sirius's questions by going on the offensive. Namely, criticizing the shit knots he'd made on the ladder. Now, as he added length to said ladder, Sirius had launched his counter-offensive. Namely, picking apart every element of James's plan, even the bits they'd settled hours before.

"You're cert the best diversion is that tapestry, Prongs?"

"Yep," James answered.

Evans was a bloody fantastic snog, he'd give her that much. She was a bloody fantastic shrew, too.

"But—"

"Change it, then, if you can find something better."

And she'd fairly well launched herself at him, hadn't she?

"And where will they intercept, d'you think? The hall?"

Not that he'd minded—he'd been four seconds short of doing the same.

"No," James said. "The library."

"How do you know?"

James reckoned he'd be content never eat a scone again, so long as he could taste them second-hand from her.

"Trust me, mate. They'll be there."

Sirius grew silent, bored of the offensive since James refused to engage. James worked in silence until he finished the knot. He looked up just in time to see Sirius flip the map upside down.

"What if we ran a reverse Deflective Duck?" Sirius asked.

James was feeling—rattled. Buoyant. Stark-raving. He had his watch back, his wife was a fantastic snog, and he was going to trounce her to pieces in less than forty-three minutes.

"That could work."

Footsteps, his arse.

* * *

"You're seven minutes late," Mary parroted.

"Oh." Lily winced. "Sorry."

More like ten minutes late, all because she was a deviant. An impulsive, reckless deviant incapable of keeping her hands to herself. The rub was she couldn't regret it, any of it, because, well—James Potter was a fantastic kisser. A fool and a black-haired menace, yes, but damn…

"What kept you?" Mary asked.

"I ran into—erm—I got waylaid."

Mary eyed her critically; Lily willed herself to remain calm. She'd straightened her dress and fixed her hair as best as she could manage without a mirror. Mary's smirk told her it hadn't been good enough.

Lily reached up and patted her head. Shit—the handkerchief wasn't there anymore.

"I see you've managed to get the net," Mary said blithely.

Lily nodded, grateful she hadn't pressed the point, and busied herself with the net.

"Yes," she said. "She accepted the bribe, and gave me a scone to boot."

James had taken the watch from her pocket—fair. Had that been his only motivation, though? Because it would be criminal, really, for him to snog that well and not mean it.

"Lily…"

"Hm?"

"Are you all right?"

Lily snapped her head up, feeling herself turn crimson. "Quite," she said. "Now help me, please. We've got to get in position before they set up."

Footsteps? What had she been thinking?

* * *

He thumbed the watch in his pocket, pulled it out, and popped it open. Five forty-five, exactly. The next quarter hour would sort things, then. Though for better or worse, he couldn't say.

James counted backwards from five hundred.

He danced a waltz he'd been forced to learn when he was six—the replacement vase attached to his back didn't slip. Tricky work it'd been, securing it tightly enough for the climb down, yet with a knot that could be loosed and secured again in less than ten seconds. Though they'd managed, the effort had cost them dearly for time.

Four hundred twelve.

He smirked at the library doors. He'd secured them using her own bloody trick—fireplace poker through the handles. Foul play, but he couldn't risk her interfering with his rope.

Not that she would knowingly send him plunging to his death. Over the marriage thing, or the piano, sure. Even over his stunt with the wall, maybe, but not the damn vase.

He triple checked them, just in case.

Three hundred twenty-five.

James unlatched the library window. Tentatively, he poked his head out and into the crisp summer evening. He scanned up, down, and to the left.

All clear.

Three hundred.

He tugged on the rope, testing it—again. He'd secured it to a support pillar, and quadruple checked those knots. He'd adjusted the length until it was perfect: short enough that it wouldn't be visible from the kitchen windows a floor below, yet long enough that he wouldn't have to, as Padfoot had said, "swing and jump." Hopefully.

Two hundred ninety.

James checked the knots again.

Two hundred fifty.

Sirius's head appeared one story down and six rooms over. After a curt nod, he disappeared. James braced his arms on either side of the window frame and heaved himself out, so that he was perched on the sill.

Two hundred twenty-five.

Fear is normal, Potter. Perfectly rational, given your traumatic history with this sort of thing. If you weren't terrified out of your bleeding fucking mind, ten seconds from pissing yourself, that would be cause for concern…

Two hundred.

You-are-not-going-to-die-you-are-not-going-to-die-you-are-not-going-to-die-you-are-not-going-to-die-you-are-not-going-to-die-you-are-going-to-die-you-are-definitely-going-to-fucking-die

James pushed one foot off the ledge, checked once again that the rope would hold, and started the climb down.

One hundred seventy-five.

Deflective Duck sounded pretty reasonable 'bout now.

One twenty-five.

Shit-shit-shit-shit-damn-buggering-fuck-shit-hell-damn-son-of-a-mothering-cock—

Seventy-five.

James adjusted his trajectory so the rope didn't dangle in front of his mother's windows, stopping once when he'd cleared them completely.

Fifty.

He climbed up two torturous knot lengths, high enough that he could look in through the window. All clear.

Twenty-five.

He pulled the window open. Thank hell he'd had had the foresight to undo the latch during his visit the day before.

One.

James landed on the carpet with an indelicate thud. He'd never been more grateful for a hideous paisley carpet.

* * *

According to her spies, the boys had left their room twenty minutes prior. And from her vantage point, she'd watched Potter slip into the library with a ridiculous vase tied to his back.

One floor up, Mary was in position with the butter and—she shuddered—the mice.

Stebbins and Davies held the East Wing. A failsafe, in case her plan turned to shit.

* * *

The stench of burning fabric irritated James's nostrils.

Minor guilt pricked, at giving the servants more work, but that tapestry was no one's loss. It had been necessary, anyway, letting Sirius light things on fire. And it had made an excellent diversion.

He untied the stand-in from his back, swept the room for the vase, and froze.

Because he'd been a fool, hadn't he, to think he could outwit them?

He was knee deep in a puddle of horse piss.

* * *

She was ankle deep in a heaping, steaming pile of manure, because she'd expected Potter, yet it had been Mary who'd just come bursting down the hall.

Which meant Mary was not in position to watch the service lift.

"Mary, what are you doing here?" she said.

"It doesn't matter, Lily."

"What? Why not?

"Because— I tried to tell you earlier…" Mary said, then she burst into tears and Lily couldn't get another word out of her.

* * *

Eighty seconds left.

Four nearly identical and equally hideous gold and white vases stood sentinel throughout the room. He had no idea which was genuine. Either Dursley collected the fucking things, or none of these were real, or—

Damn it.

Seventy.

C'mon, Potter. Think.

He dismissed the rhododendrons and the lilies out of hand, which left purple columbines and sunflowers.

There was something poetic about the columbines, wasn't there? The meaning was plain. James took two steps toward the vase when another image popped unbidden into his brain—her paintings in the tower.

Sunflowers.

Sixty.

Fitting too? Right? Depended on what he thought of her. Or, more importantly, what she thought of him. Was this another bleeding test?

Fifty.

Fuck. He changed trajectory—the sunflowers. A risk, sure. One he was willing to take.

Thirteen seconds to make the switch, taking great care not to spill the water.

The doorknob rattled. Unacceptable, as he had thirty seconds to spare, and Sirius had yet to give the warning. His father walked in, then froze in the doorway. James, who had one foot out the window, likewise stopped in his tracks. They observed each other warily.

"Son," his father said, brushing a weary hand over his face. James recognized the gesture as his own.

James nodded curtly. "Sir."

"Don't call me 'sir,' James."

"Then don't call me 'son,' Dad," James retorted before he could help it.

James's father laughed. Stepping into the room, he closed the door with a deafening click.

"Your mother isn't best pleased with you," his father said sternly. Except, it wasn't stern at all—more his father's idea of what a stern voice ought to sound like—and it didn't suit. James almost pitied him. "Perhaps it would be best if you avoided supper this evening?" he tried again.

James grinned. "Of course."

His father looked as relieved as James felt.

"Dare I ask what tomfoolery you're doing with that poor vase?"

"Not if you want to be able to keep honest with Mum, you won't."

"Off you go, then."

A loud crash boomed from the corridor.

Zero.

"That's her, Dad," James pleaded. "I've got to go. Please don't—"

His father nodded. "I'll distract her so you can slip out. And close that window…"

James shut the window and dove behind the sofa just as the doorknob rattled.

* * *

"Mary, what do you mean the vase isn't in the Potters' rooms?"

"Just as I said."

"But—"

"She found—everything—out…this morning," Mary said between sniffles.

Lily had just gotten her calmed down. A harsh response would push her to sobs again, so she measured her response carefully. "How, Mare?"

"I don't… know. She was just…so nice, and I didn't even realize…what was happening until she'd gotten the…entire story bloody out of me."

Lily had the same experience the morning before, and patted her shoulder.

"Mary, Love, where did she put the vase?"

Mary wasn't listening. "She just wanted to teach a lesson, Lil, to all of you. And I mean…she wasn't wrong, was she? She suggested a decoy. And I couldn't argue with her…"

"It's all right, love, just—"

Mary looked up suddenly, "Oh, Lil. I'm sorry."

"It's okay—it really is. Just—do you know where she put it?"

"In that alcove on the landing…"

"Hiding in plain sight," Lily muttered to herself. "Brilliant."

The girls sat, silent, while Lily pondered this strange turn of events and Mary dried her tears.

"Why didn't you tell me about any of it?" Lily finally asked.

"I tried, but you rushed out."

"The moral objection?" Lily asked, guilt bubbling.

"Yes."

"You could've tried harder, you know…"

"No," Mary insisted, recovering her smile. "I needed to keep you busy. And I didn't want to spoil your fun."

Valid, all of it—Lily couldn't have argued if she'd have wanted to. So she stood abruptly, pulling Mary up with her, and together they set off for the vase.

* * *

James's hiding place behind the couch afforded him a partial view of his parents.

"Those children, Monty," James's mother huffed as she slammed her singed gloves down on the side table. "What are we going to do with them?"

"Cut them loose," his father said impassively.

"Really, Fleamont, this is no time for your jokes."

"Only trying to lighten the mood, dear."

"Well, don't."

"Now, Effie, calm down," his father said. "They're suffering from a healthy dose of rebellion, that's all. We expected no less."

"That doesn't make it easier to bear, darling."

Something like guilt tugged at James's conscience at hearing the exhaustion in his mother's voice.

"Are you second-guessing our choices?"

"No."

"Because we came all this way for her, you know. We heard about her ages ago. She's—"

"—the only one who can match him, I do know." She sighed wearily. "You haven't been here all day enduring their shenanigans."

Indignation swiftly squelched down the guilt—they'd been planning this for ages? They'd come here expecting no less? What in the bloody fucking hell…

"I've been keeping Dursley company, dear, I'll remind you."

"Bloody hell, Fleamont, I'm sorry, I nearly forgot. How was he?"

Shock replaced indignation at hearing his mother swear so indelicately.

"Unbearable," his father assured her, "in more ways than you can imagine. At any rate, we've only to endure this nonsense for another—"

"Forty-one hours. Eighteen of which, I assure you, I will be sleeping, or pretending to."

James's father placed his hand on the small of her back and led her to the sofa. James might sick up if they kissed.

"What are we going to do," she asked, "if we return home and they don't settle down?"

James balked—awfully presumptive of her, wasn't it?

"Assuming she comes," his father said.

"Yes, assuming."

Better.

"We leave them to their own devices, pack any valuables we don't want destroyed, escape to France, and wait for news of our first grandchild…"

Grandchild? Grandchild?

"Wonderful," his mother said. "And, my love, how do you propose we endure supper tonight?"

"Three hours in their company is a daunting prospect, isn't it?"

"Indeed."

"Fortification is in order, I think." James's father stepped to the side table, produced a bottle from the cabinet, and poured two drinks.

"Keep pouring," his mother said, and when his father handed her an overfull glass, she extended her thanks. He remained standing as she swiftly drained it, and only after refilling it for her did he take a seat next to her.

"I warned Sirius that he's to keep James away from the table tonight at all costs," she confessed.

"Too right."

"And do you know what Lily's companion, the dressmaker, told me?"

James wanted to hear what Mary said, and he had no reservations about eavesdropping further, but his father lightly tapped the back of the sofa. As James did indeed need to get the fuck out of there before his mother noticed the vase, or the rope, or him, he made his way toward the window. His father feigned a coughing fit, which allowed him to open the window and grab the rope. Silently, he pulled himself through and began the brutal climb, taking the excess rope up with him.

* * *

She and Mary moved briskly through the corridors with singular purpose: the vase. Two floors away from their goal, however, they were waylaid by a smarmy, smirking Sirius Black. The foul stench of acrid wool and smoke clung to his clothes. At least she'd been right about the tapestry.

"Ladies," he said, giving them a sweeping bow.

"Mister Black," they chorused.

Inspecting their empty arms, he crossed his own. "You don't have the vase?" he asked. When they offered no response, he demanded: "Lift up your skirts."

"Pull down your pants," Mary retorted, while Lily—somewhat more reasonably—noted out loud that he didn't have it, either.

"You two are together," he said.

"Indeed, we are," Lily said coolly. "And your mate is unaccounted for. Shouldn't that be cause for concern?"

"No," Sirius said, though he didn't walk away. They squared off, she and him, each unsure what to say, yet both unwilling to part ways…

Finally, Sirius said, "Where is Prongs, then?"

"Incapacitated," Lily lied, feeling mightily smug about it.

"What do you mean?"

"You'd better go find out, yes?"

Sirius's eyes narrowed. "You're bluffing."

"Am I?"

"Are you?"

"Am—"

"Bloody hell, Black," Mary said. "He is incapacitated. In the library, mind, and quite possibly in a great deal of discomfort, and you're standing here arguing like a complete git, and just think about how incredibly furious he's going to be with you when he realizes you could've helped him, and you were too busy flirting with us—"

Lily believed Mary, and she knew the story was a stack of falsehoods. Oh, she could have kissed her.

"All right!" Sirius said. "If you're fucking with me, MacDonald…"

Mary and Sirius stared each other down until eventually Sirius's high cheekbones tinged the faintest pink. Subtle, yes, but Lily took that as a marker of full on panic.

With a curt nod, he deftly sidestepped them, rounded the corner, and made for the library in what sounded a flat run.

* * *

What had Mary told his mother? Disconcerting, that.

James kept a vigilant look out for Evans—and her possible traps—as he made his way through the corridors. Every step did nothing to assuage his discomfort, however, because she wasn't there.

Nor was she on the next flight.

Or the next.

Which meant—

James was not surprised when Sirius came jogging around the corner.

"I fucking knew it," he said, staring at James. "That bloody shrew."

"What?"

"That you weren't idiotic enough to get yourself trapped."

"'Course not," James said nonchalantly, trying to conceal his panic. Because why-was-Sirius-here-and-what-in-the-bloody-fuck-was-going-on. Then he saw Sirius's flushed face and realized he wasn't alone. Sirius reached the same conclusion.

"Prongs," he said seriously, clapping James on the back, "I ran into the girls."

James's stomach plummeted. "And?"

"I don't know how to say this, mate…"

"Yeah?"

"They didn't look the least bit ruffled…"

"Shit," James said. "Which can only mean one thing." He held up the vase in his arm for Sirius to see. "This isn't the vase, is it?"

Sirius shook his head gravely, and wrapped a steadying arm around James's shoulders.

* * *

"I swear, Lil," Mary said despondently. "It was here twenty minutes ago."

"How on earth could they have figured it out?"

"I don't know."

They stood, forlorn, facing an empty alcove. No vase. No flowers. Nothing.

"We've been duped, Mare." Plain and simple, wasn't it? Although how he'd pulled it off, Lily hadn't the faintest idea. There was nothing else for it: she'd once again underestimated James Potter.

"Could she have told them?"

"No," Lily said. "And yet, I can't believe they outsmarted us."

It didn't add up—any of it. The shock hadn't set in. For the second time in an hour, Potter had left her weak-kneed, although for different reasons…

"What are we going to do?" Mary asked.

"I'll have to face him, I suppose, and endure the humiliation of his victory."

"I'm so sorry, Lil—"

"No, Mary, you didn't do anything wrong. Really." And though Mary looked at her doubtfully, Lily shook her head. "Thank you," she added sincerely, "for all your help."

"I'll release the mice into your sister's room while she's at dinner," Mary said, grinning.

"Stick one down Potter's trousers while you're at it." Lily returned her smile. "You are my favorite, you know—"

"I do."

"And thank you—for—the other thing."

"Oh," Mary said, brightening, "You mean, not reminding you about the plans and the sh—"

"Precisely."

"I would never—"

"Of course not." After a pause in which Mary gave her a meaningful look, Lily sighed. "I've got to go face him now, don't I?"

Mary nodded, then gave her a sharp salute. With another miserable sigh, Lily, slumped and dejected, turned and skulked in the direction of the tower room. She was four steps away when Mary called out to her, "There is a bright side to all of this, Lil."

Lily raised an eyebrow.

"At least you'll be able to get that green scarf back from Potter."

She scowled at Mary. Really, she ought to have known.

"Oh, wipe that look off your face," Mary said, wagging her eyebrows suggestively. "I'm sure you'll find a way to make him…less…insufferable…"

Before Lily could retort, however, Mary turned around and fairly well skipped away. Lily watched her disappear around the corner, then, when she was sure Mary wouldn't double back, deviated course to the kitchens. There, though she endured McGonagall's brisk, unpleasant—and yes, deserved—lecture, she left with a basket heavy laden with spoils. Decidedly worth it. For though she herself had no appetite, the food would make an excellent bribe.

And if that didn't work, she wasn't above holding it hostage.

After stopping by her room to freshen up, she could justify delaying no longer and trudged off to the tower.

* * *

As Evans climbed through the trapdoor with another basket in hand, James squelched down his nausea and gave her a winning smile.

"Aren't you going to ask me how I did it?" he asked, before he could stop himself.

She had the vase—they both knew it. For whatever the reason, however, she played along.

"Do I have to?" she asked, looking thoroughly miserable. Would she stoop so low as to feign misery, to sharpen the sting when she pulled the vase from the basket? Yes, she would.

"Yes," he said.

"Fine. How'd you manage?"

"I am James Potter, mischief maker, Marauder, who can purportedly cheat his way out of any scrape."

He'd hoped for a smirk, or a retort. For her to come clean and put him out of his misery. Instead, he got nothing—she was definitely playing her. He redoubled his efforts.

"Oh, c'mon, Evans. Tell me you're impressed."

She folded her arms. "More annoyed than impressed."

"Ah, you are impressed though."

"How did you manage?" she asked again, carrying this to the point of absurdity.

In for a pence… "I told you, I'm James—"

"Cut it, Potter. That's not the damn—"

"—vase, I know." James deflated, half relieved, half dreading her inevitable triumph—she was going to be insufferable. He lay back on the blanket and made a study of the ceiling. "How'd you do it?" he asked. "Where is it hiding?"

"Are you still playing at that?" Evans snapped. "I told you to stop."

He shot back up. "Me? You're the one dragging this out."

"You're the one feigning martyrdom."

"It's not an act, you arse—"

"Where is it?" James demanded. "In that basket?" He reached for it, but Evans scooted herself in front of him.

"Wait—James. Stop."

He stopped. Glared at her, sure, but he stopped.

"You really don't have it, do you?" she asked.

She was going to make him say it. He crossed his arms and refused to answer. He wasn't, after all, above petulance.

"I'll take that as a 'no' then?"

He gave a vague sort of gesture that might be interpreted as a shrug.

"I don't have it either, Potter."

He snorted derisively.

"Honest!"

His scowl faded when he caught her gaze—she wasn't lying. James replayed their conversation in his mind, kicking himself. Of bloody course she'd been despondent, if she'd thought…

He was an idiot.

"Where the hell is it, then?" he asked.

"I don't know," she moaned, throwing her hands in the air.

"How did this happen?"

"Your mum—she teased the story out of Mary this morning."

"Mary?"

"She's torn up about it," she said, "so don't waste your anger…"

"Far from it, Evans. She has my utmost sympathy."

When Evans nodded ruefully, he motioned for her to continue.

"Well, your mother switched it—the original—for a random vase in the passage."

James's stomach plummeted three floors. "Where—er—exactly did she put it?"

"In plain sight." Lily looked at him curiously. "The alcove between the third and fourth floors."

He massaged his forehead with a thumb and forefinger. "Opposite the tapestry with the goats?"

Lily bit her lip, but stopped when she saw his gaze flicker to her mouth. James removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands.

"Sirius smashed it," he said finally. "To warn me when she headed back to her room."

"I'm sorry," she said lightly. His stomach jolted for entirely different reasons. "Did you say that Sirius smashed our vase?"

"He didn't do it on purpose, Evans, so don't take your disappointment, or anger, or whatever, out on him—"

"I'm not angry. At least it's gone, and the world is better off for it."

"Besides, it's my fault."

"How do you figure?"

"I reckon she figured we'd try to come after it. She definitely discerned we'd set the tapestry on fire—"

"Well, yes, so did I, so that doesn't—"

"She placed the vase there intentionally," James said, "knowing full well about the tapestry and, by proximity, the vase." He looked to Evans, but she wasn't comprehending his meaning. "See—breaking vases is sort of our, er, signature."

"Signature?" Lily bit back a smile. "You have a signature?"

"Don't you?"

"Erm…no."

"Well, we do, and she of course knows. She always knows, and she put that vase there to set Sirius up, and you can disbelieve me, Evans, but she's my mother, and I know her…"

"I want to believe you. It's just—I've met her. And she is your mother, but on the whole—on most accounts, that is—she seems, well, rather lovely?"

He scoffed.

"She can't be that devious, James, I don't believe it…"

"Remember the island?"

She smiled. "Well, you did purposefully steal the boat and shoot a hole through it…"

"And forcing us to share a room last night, hm? That was 'rather lovely?'"

"Erm—well…we were a bit ridiculous last night, weren't we?"

"Rhododendrons are her favorite flower for a reason, Evans," he said darkly.

"And?"

"Remember your flower meanings."

A long silence followed while Lily digested this. Then, quietly: "Your mother is terrifying, James."

He slumped. "I know."

"Brilliant—"

"Of course."

"And nice."

"Terrifying, all the same," James said wistfully. "I'm quite fond of her, myself."

Lily produced a bottle of whisky. "And what shall we do with this, then?"

We. He hadn't thought that far ahead, truthfully. She'd brought supper, hopefully, thinking he'd won. And it probably wasn't poisoned.

But he could leave her, go find Sirius, and…what?

To delay giving an answer, James checked his watch, then stifled a curse. Nearly seven. They'd wasted an entire bloody afternoon chasing after a damned vase, and for what? Nothing to show for it, and one bloody day left—one day and a bit, technically—to sort this out.

He studied her. She looked apprehensive, nervous, rather like he felt. The bottle was a peace offering, or an invitation. Something.

He didn't want to leave. More than that—he really, really wanted to stay.

James Potter, he told himself, you are really, truly, a fucking arse, and he held out his hand expectantly.

"I, for one, could use a drink," he said, and she handed it over. He took a proper swig. "And what's in there?" he asked hopefully, tilting the bottle toward the hamper.

"Your supper," she said, placing it between them. "Most likely your lunch, too."

"You are brilliant, Evans."

"I know."

"Nice, too."

He liked to see her blush, and to know he was the cause.

But as they parceled out the food, her frown returned. "You know," she said, "I was rather looking forward to smashing that vase."

His mouth full of bread, he wordlessly slid his imposter vase toward her. Least he could do, really. She ignored it, tilted her head as if something had just occurred to her.

"Did you choose the sunflowers or the columbines?"

He shrugged.

"I'll find out when we fetch the rest from your parents' room. I did, after all, promise my sister we'd dispose of them."

"You—what?"

"She detests the things," Lily said cheerily. "They're anniversary gifts from Dursley's horrid sister. She agreed to let me have them if she could blame their demise on you."

"Thank you for throwing me under the carriage…"

"You'll never have to meet her—if you're lucky."

James didn't doubt her. How could he get along with anyone who had such shit taste in vases? Petunia Dursley was living proof—even the imitation he held in his hands was awful.

"Well, this one is ugly enough to suffice in the meantime," he said, "so if you need to indulge the urge…"

"I can't."

"The satisfaction is gone?"

She nodded glumly.

"We could tip it out the window…"

"I'm not inebriated enough for that."

"Give it time, Evans." With a roguish grin, he handed her the bottle. "Give it time."

* * *

As their families were cloistered in the drawing and dining rooms, she and James had full run of the castle, and gathering the vases proved appallingly simple. On their second trip, with the last of the vases in hand, Lily stopped at the head of her favorite staircase and drummed her fingers on the banister.

"Have you ever?" she asked.

"Sure. Mum forbade me after age eight, though."

"You fell?"

"A story and a half," he bragged. "Broke my arm in two places. Couldn't keep from using it, so it healed crooked." He transferred the vase to his right arm and held out the left for her inspection.

She couldn't see that it was at all crooked, really. But he looked so damn proud, like a preening peacock, that she smiled and nodded as if she had.

"Did that stop you from doing it again?"

He carded a hand through his hair, then rocked back on his heels. "What d'you think?"

"Petunia keeps the banisters polished," she said in mock seriousness, "to act as a deterrent." She drummed her fingers again.

"She's determined to ruin all your fun, isn't she?"

"She hopes to stamp the impropriety out of me."

"And did her plan succeed?" he asked. Before she could answer, he clarified, "The banister, I mean. I know the overarching campaign of turning you into a proper lady is an utter failure."

Lily nudged the stair rail with her hip. "What do you think?"

"Improper ladies first, then," he said, plucking the vase from her arms.

In a well-practiced maneuver, Lily braced herself with both hands and hopped onto the rail.

"Sidesaddle? Are you mad?"

She grinned. "You know, I think I might be." And then she let go.

While this was nothing to the long, winding staircases she'd grown up with, the polish added speed, and thrill. Fierce, wild joy overtook her. She had to bite her lip to keep from shrieking.

Too soon, the ride ended, and Lily landed on her bum with an indelicate whump.

"Was that supposed to be a landing?" he called, his voice quaking with laughter.

Though she never could stick the landing, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Instead, she said: "You can do better?"

In answer, he set both vases down and mounted the banister, rather like a horse. Rather like a man riding his childhood pony, really—his overlong limbs rendered the scene ridiculous. On his descent, he let out a loud whoop. If she'd have known he was going to, she wouldn't have taken such care to be quiet. But then he was moving, fast, and she barely had time to jump out of his way. He landed gracefully on his feet and gave her a sweeping, dramatic bow.

Now he really looked a preening peacock, the bloody showoff prick. She rushed up the stairs, to keep from kissing that stupid smirk off his face.

They alternated turns, running up and then sliding back down. She indulged in her shrieks, Petunia be damned. If they were found out, James assured her, they'd leave the vases and run.

He landed perfectly every time, sometimes bowing or saluting—to rub salt in the wound, no doubt. When he somersaulted, however, she rewarded the effort with a light kick to his bum.

She, on the other hand, always landed in a tangled, giggling mess on the rug. Not that she minded—this was the closest thing to flying.

Well, next to kissing James Potter, perhaps. But that was a mad, horrid, dangerous idea.

So, when he offered to catch her and save her backside some pain, as if that wouldn't lead to something more, she politely—albeit reluctantly—declined. She'd expected an argument, but he merely doubled the carpet over on itself to better cushion her falls.

Considerate bastard.

The clock eventually chimed ten, signaling the end of supper. They wandered back to her gable room, vases in hand. Impressive, that he could push the stone footholds in from memory.

As they worked their way through the gingersnaps, James regaled her with an amusing story explaining how his watch got ruined. It featured—of course—property damage and alcohol. Lily quite agreed that replacing the watch was the least Sirius could do, given his role in the original's demise. He wouldn't explain the nicknames, though, however much she pressed.

Finally, they turned their attention to the vases. Smashing them felt more like a chore than revenge, at least until Lily adapted Mary's favorite pastime—tucking tiny, unflattering embroidered caricatures into the needlework of Petunia's more elaborate dresses—for their purposes.

James declared her plan brilliant and took his pick of her soft pastel sticks, and she split the vases between them—two apiece. The fifth they decided to keep as a souvenir.

He immediately pulled a vase onto his lap and hunched over, pastel in hand. Lily, for her part, couldn't decide which of her repugnant suitors deserved the places of honor. After some scrutiny, the handles of one rather reminded her of Bertram's ears, and the puffed out bottom of the other served a passable likeness for Westenberg's bulging cheeks.

She set to work on Bertram first.

Except Potter was terribly distracting, wasn't he, with his pursed lips and the way he sucked in the hollow of his right cheek. Only the right, not the left.

Lily redirected her attention to Bertram's ridiculous mustache, perfecting the twists of the ends. She put in his sharp eyebrows, and that damned cleft chin he'd been so proud of. It wasn't nice, drawing unflattering depictions, but the exercise proved too cathartic for Lily to entertain a prickling conscience.

The moment she'd finished with the chin, she rewarded herself with another glance at James. He had a smudge of yellow pastel on the nosepiece of his glasses from pushing them up.

She fought the urge to bend over and rub it off, instead sketching Bertram's enormous sideburns. Much as she tried to focus, however, Potter kept teasing her attention away.

Oh, not intentionally. He wasn't paying her any mind. In fact, this was the first time in two days she hadn't seen him fidgeting. She watched, mesmerized, as his hands moved with practiced skill: sketching, shading, and then filling in the details.

She heard the echoes of the stately grandfather clock two floors down, calling out the end of the day.

How bloody long had she been staring? He hadn't teased her about it—perhaps he hadn't noticed? She peeked again.

No, he had a little half-smile on his face. He knew.

Embarrassed, she immersed herself in Westenberg, fussing over his bulbous nose, complete with hairs and large, flaring nostrils. She got rather carried away in adding the moles. More than she remembered, really, but as it was for dramatic effect, she allowed the indulgence. She'd just started on his thick, single eyebrow when Potter announced his work complete.

She hurried to finish, trying not to flush under Potter's interested gaze. She couldn't berate him for staring, could she? Not after all the gaping she'd done. Once she'd finally finished, she set her vase aside, then stretched forward to pick up the nearest of his.

The portrait was good—not nearly as unflattering as her renderings. If this girl was as pretty as her likeness, he would've been hard pressed to make her unflattering. An unpleasant feeling twisted Lily's stomach. Mary might've called it jealousy.

"And who's this?" Lily asked casually.

James shrugged. "A blonde from Lincolnshire."

"She's beautiful," she said, striving to keep her voice impassive.

"She was awful." James shuddered.

"Oh?"

"Goats. Trust me—you don't want to know."

Curiosity burned; she did want to know—every sordid detail, anything that would keep her from this baseless jealousy—yet he offered none. She handed back the vase. He moved to the window, pulled open the sash, and tossed goat girl unceremoniously out the window.

He paused there, Lily assumed to appreciate the grounds, or the stars, or both. She took full advantage and appreciated the unobstructed view of his arse. He wiggled it, and he laughed, and she swore under her breath.

"And who's this?" he asked, still grinning once he'd returned to his spot. He inspected her vase. "Cheeks?"

"Not cheeks, Potter. His name is William Westenberg."

"Sounds perfectly stodgy."

"He was a complete gentleman," she answered primly. "Respectable and inoffensive in every way."

"Except?"

"Oh, you know, he was twice my age and suffered both from severe sneezing fits and an unfortunate fondness for beetles."

"That is unfortunate."

"Quite. I'm sure he and his beetles are perfectly happy together, though."

"His moles, too," James said. After counting them, he held the vase up to his own face, so they were side by side. He blew his cheeks out so she could compare. With a laugh, she held her hands out, and he returned it to her arms, muttering some comment about lovers reunited. He gave a hearty farewell salute as she moved to the window and sent poor Mister Westenberg careening to his doom.

The moat muffled the landing, but it was satisfying enough, watching it fall.

She settled back down, cross-legged, across from Potter. "And this lovely lady?"

"The Brunette from Wales."

"She's also very pretty."

"And she was just as awful as the other."

"What was her fatal flaw, then?"

He pondered the matter. "Too many to name."

"Ah. And what was it you called her? The other?"

"Blonde from Lincolnshire."

That—hm. "Wait. Am—am I the redhead from Surrey, then?"

When he didn't answer straight away, she busied herself with a loose thread on the blanket.

Suddenly, he scooted closer and knelt before her, both of his knees brushing the hem of her skirt. It was too close by far, but not for him, apparently, because he leaned forward until his face was level with hers. He plucked the vase out of her lap and set it on the blanket. And then, because that wasn't close e-bloody-nough, he placed his pastel-covered thumb under her chin and lifted it so that her eyes met his.

He spoke, slow and steady: "I never took the trouble, Lily Evans, to learn their names."

Lily swallowed, her heart skittering in her chest, her cheeks coloring at the intensity of his unwavering gaze.

The silence begged her to speak, or to act. Something. Because that gesture—aside from being sweet— was very telling, whether meant it to be or not. They only had a day and a half left.

She couldn't bring herself to speak, move, blink.

His hand cupped her cheek, this thumb tracing her jaw. He was going to kiss her, wasn't he? And she was going to let him.

Except, she couldn't let him. They still had a day and a half left, after all, and this was all muddled, and wanting to snog a bloke didn't mean you wanted to marry him. What she needed, really, was sleep, and a clear head, and most of all, Mary.

So she ducked her head and backed away, slipping out of his grasp. His hands dropped to his knees, and he backed away.

For want of something to do, to break the awkwardness, she thrust the vase back at him.

"Here's your brunette back," she said, plastering the false, bright smile she'd learned from Tuney on her face. "Go on, then."

He pulled it from her grasp, and silently moved to the window.

It was safe to look again, now that his back was turned. He took great care in perching the vase on the windowsill, making minor adjustments until it was perfectly balanced, poised. With the smallest of flicks, he sent the wretched brunette, vase and all, tumbling over the edge. Moments later, a distant splash signaled her demise.

He lingered at the window, his shoulders hunched, while Lily busied herself with gathering the scattered pastels and sorting them into their little wooden box.

When he faced her again, though, he was all smiles, the tension seemingly gone from his shoulders.

"And who is this?" he asked, settling back down and nodding toward her vase.

She passed it over, and he inspected it with a furrowed brow.

"Is this Aubrey? Bertram Aubrey? From Hampstead?"

"The very one."

"You almost married him?"

"You know him?"

The vase threatened to crack under Potter's tight grip, and his brows were constricted so closely together that he might have had one. How reassuring that she wasn't the only one prone to fits of jealousy.

"I kicked that pompous git's arse at fencing. More than once, I might add."

"I suppose my experience was similar. I knocked him over the head with a candlestick."

James's face cracked into his wide, boyish smile. "That was you? He didn't shut up about that for months."

"I suppose I was his redhead from Surrey, then?"

James threw his head back in a burst of hoarse laughter, which she recognized as Black's from the night before. "Well," he said, once he'd recovered, "you dodged a sword, didn't you, not getting stuck with him."

"I'm better at dodging than he is."

"Clever bit with the ears," he said, holding the vase out. "The handles are a bit small to do them justice, but the likeness is passable."

"Thank you."

"Send him off with the others, then, and good riddance."

She took it gingerly, careful to avoid brushing his fingers, but she did return his smile.

She lifted Aubrey with a handle pinched between her thumb and forefinger, not unlike she'd seen McGonagall do to Stebbins on several occasions. The handle was covered in pastel, however, and the vase was so damned heavy that she nearly dropped it. Quickly, she lifted it through the window and let go.

As Aubrey fell, James hummed a funeral march in the background.

* * *

Funeral march was appropriate, wasn't it? She was going to be the bloody death of him.

She was thinking who-knew-what, now, as she stuck her head out that window, resting her forearms on the sill. Her silhouette was dark against the bright, moon-lit sky, and she craned her neck, to better see the constellations.

There were worse ways to go about dying.

He'd wanted to kiss her. More than kiss her, maybe. Except she'd seemed nervous, or scared, or something of both. He'd been half relieved, when she'd slipped away, half frustrated, half—

She broke into a yawn, arms stretching over her head. Not unlike they'd done around his neck, earlier.

Fuck.

"What time is it?" she asked, her voice laced with a sleepiness he hadn't noticed before.

Smiling slightly, he reached into his pocket and fished out his watch, squinting to read it in the diminishing candlelight. One? Damn. He'd slipped past exhaustion sometime yesterday, and was lingering now in some in-between state. Like being pissed. Only without the pleasant warmth buzzing in his ears, telling him his awful impulses were brilliant.

"Tomorrow," he said.

"Do you want to see something?"

"Does it involve going out that window onto the ledge I saw earlier?"

"Yes." Her voice was earnest, almost wistful. "It's risky."

Hell, she was trying to tempt him.

"Then not particularly, no."

She pulled herself back through the window. Instead of returning to the blanket, she sat down right there, leaning against the wall with her head resting against the sill. "Had enough dangling out windows for one day, have you?"

"I have, actually."

That sly, knowing smile teased the corner of her mouth. Wars had been started for less.

"It's only a shimmy, three steps, and a tiny hop, Potter."

"I'll take your word for it, Evans. And since we're in need something to do, and since our biscuits are tragically gone, I'll have you know I always keep two things on my person for instances such as these."

"Lily."

"What?"

"The 'Evans' bit is old, don't you think?"

The funeral march reverberated in his head. "Well, Lily, I keep two things on my person at all times."

"Your ego and that comb your never use?"

"Clever."

"I am, thank you."

"The two things I always keep on my person, Lily—"

"I'm going to revoke your name privileges if you abuse them by saying it like that."

"Are you done interrupting me?"

"It is a privilege to be interrupted by me, Potter."

"James."

"I already called you James—"

"I'd noticed."

She wasn't teasing him, she was flirting with him. Boldly. And he was flirting right back.

"Go on then, James, tell me what they are."

He unleashed the sharpest version of his Marauder smirk. "Cards." He held out his left hand, palm out, to reveal a battered, sagging box. "And as you know, matches." He slid his right thumb against his middle finger to reveal his last, lone match. "Well, a match."

She fought her smile. And the harder she fought, the more he stared, trying to make her smile. And then he was trying not to smile, and they were both idiots, weren't they?

She cracked first, breaking into a wide grin. Her laugh, when it came, was loud and dissonant—a cord played wrong. And it was infectious, wasn't it? Sometimes—when relief wasn't possible, for instance—a laugh would suffice for unwinding the tension.

So he joined in, losing control, and they laughed themselves properly silly. He laughed until his sides ached, for no reason in particular. Several minutes had passed before he could trust himself to look at her again.

Her, and her rosy cheeks, and her face nearly divided in two. Perhaps he'd best not look at her again, yeah?

The laugh had worked though. He wouldn't object to a snog, sure, but the last of the knots between his shoulder blades had eased.

When she'd finally wiped the last of her tears away, she said, "Cards, please, but don't throw the match away…"

Except she cut herself with a long yawn, which he also found infectious. Maybe they'd best forego cards, or early morning ledge climbing, or any of it.

"New plan, Lily."

"Hmm?"

"I think it's time for bed."

She covered her mouth again, vainly trying to stifle another yawn.

"Good." She looked around the gable room. "We can't sleep here though."

He was already tidying the room and setting the trap door into motion. After closing the window above her head, he held out his hand.

"If you can make it down the ladder, I'll escort you to your room."

"'It's not me who'll have a hard time with the ladder, y'know."

She was wrong about that, though; he had to keep her steady the whole way down. With the castle's lights dimmed, they moved slowly, making their way largely by moonlight. They made it exactly three corridors, James half-supporting her, before she declared quite dramatically—and quite adorably—that she couldn't go another step.

He took both of them by surprise, then, by scooping her into his arms.

She didn't object, instead nestling quite snugly into the crook of his shoulder. Could she hear his galloping heartbeat?

She told him when to turn, but their journey was otherwise silent, punctuated only by his footfalls and their increasingly frequent yawns.

"That's my door."

Except, when he nudged it open with his knee, the room was bloody tiny, and freezing, and sparsely furnished with what looked like centuries' old castaway pieces.

"I think there's a mistake—"

"No—this is mine."

"This is your room?"

"They'd put me in a broom cupboard, if the bed would fit."

He wasn't sure if she would regret the admission in the morning, though it wasn't anything he couldn't surmise from this horseshit.

"I've seen servants' quarters," he started, but she clamped a hand over his mouth.

"James," she said. "Bed."

He nodded gruffly, and she removed her hand. When he deposited her onto the bed, she immediately curled in on herself, dress and all. He pulled the blanket from the foot of the bed and covered her. After indulging in a light kiss to her forehead and tucking an errant curl behind her ear, he stepped away.

"Get some sleep," he whispered.

"Mhm—" she said, rolling over and snuggling into her blanket.

He was nearly to the door when: "James?"

"Hm?"

"Where are you going?"

"To bed."

"You cut your sheets to shreds, remember?"

"That is a solid point." He'd forgotten. He looked at her floor. "You don't have a rug."

She scooted as far as the wall would allow and, wordlessly, lifted the edge of her blanket.

His resolve broke. This was probably a terrible idea, but even with the map, he wasn't sure he could find his way back. The invitation was frankly too tempting to pass up. He sank onto the bed, too knackered to care that it was only a lumpy straw mattress.

"'Night, Lily," he mumbled, but she was already drifting toward sleep.


	5. Even the best

Consciousness lapped at Lily in slow waves. Dawn shone brighter than she expected for this time of year. Her sheets felt impossibly soft between her fingers. James Potter was staring at her intently, his mouth curved into a dangerous smirk.

"G'morning," she croaked, hoping her hair didn't look the unholy mess it felt.

"Hello."

His voice was quiet, calm. Same as it had been last night, only amplified, because he reached forward to brush a stray hair off her face. He stared at her like she stared at the stars.

She wanted to kiss him. She told him so.

And then they were. And it was world ending. Beginning? James Potter was an excellent kisser, even with dragon breath. All-encompassing, too, with his hands and warmth and smiles against her cheek.

Something unfurled inside her—that wave, threatening to drown her—and she pulled him closer.

His fingers fumbled with the laces of her bodice. She did the only logical thing: helped him, and started on his trousers.

As their pile of discarded clothing grew larger, the space between them grew nonexistent.

Until Lily woke up again, sharply, a pail of frigid water dumped over her head. It was still dark outside, pitch, the cold before dawn breaks. James Potter had his hand on her thigh, yes, but he was still fast asleep.

She'd had a goddamn dream.

"Potter?"

He mumbled her name into her neck.

"James—"

His lips moved on her neck, kissing, then his teeth scraped, and it felt so, so—fuck. Yet she was certain he was still sleeping…

She extricated her hand from his trousers—holy buggering fuck—and pinched his nose. He started awake.

"What the hell—" And then he registered the situation: he, in her bed, and her, pinned between him and the mattress, his trousers undone, and his hand in her dress. "Fuck."

"Mhm."

"Shit. Evans. I'm sorry. I dreamed…" He rolled off her, away, backed up as far away from her as the bed would allow.

Lily shivered involuntarily, already missing his warmth, and she wrapped her arms around herself in a pathetic kind of hug.

"Look, Evans, I'm so sor—"

"I should go," she said, cutting him off before he could stammer an apology, or worse, his regrets. What if he hadn't meant it?

"I—but it's your room."

A reasonable observation, wasn't it? He did not, however, make any effort to leave.

"Then you should go." She took the blanket from him and wrapped it snugly around her middle.

"Or," he said, "we could go back to sleep." He tugged on the blanket, but she gripped it tightly so it wouldn't give.

"Or you could leave."

"Or, Evans, we could bloody talk about this like rational adults."

He found his glasses and jammed them onto his face.

"Or…or, Potter, we could not talk about any of it, and just go back to sleep."

"Nice try, Lily, but that's not going to work."

"But that was your suggestion not sixty seconds ago!"

"Your hand was down my trousers sixty seconds ago, Evans."

"And yours was up my skirts—"

"Exactly my point! We need to talk."

"I don't want to talk."

"Too bloody bad."

He wasn't being unreasonable, and she wasn't being fair. It's just, her head pounded, positively cleaved into. She hadn't had much to drink last night, had she? Exhaustion and hunger and stress, she supposed, were cause enough.

Especially stress. Example stressor: the boy in her bed, staring at her with an incredulous expression on his face.

"Why do we have to talk?"

Whining? Pathetic, Lily.

"You know why, Evans. We're bloody married, in case you've forgotten, and we will be, permanently, whether we like it or not, unless we sort this mess out today. I'm leaving tomorrow, and—"

"This bed is too small."

"It wasn't five minutes ago," Potter said with a snort.

She rolled her eyes. "Really? This is no time for jokes."

"What time is it for, then?"

"Not for being a first-rate smart arse."

She buried her chin in the blanket, but he tugged it back down so she couldn't hide. Double prick.

"Nor is it time for being a first-rate, subject changing, avoidant shrew."

"Prick."

"Are you done?"

No, she was not. And he hadn't given her much hope, had he, with the 'whether we want to be or not' business. The room had closed around her, suffocating and heavy, like he'd been just minutes before. The pounding in her head sharpened.

Dawn broke, the feeble, grayish early morning light filtering through the gap in her curtains. Any other morning, she would've thought it beautiful.

She needed sleep, and in order for that to happen, he needed to leave.

And so: "No."

He bristled, exactly as she had hoped. "You drive me mad, Evans, you know that?"

"Back to that again, are we?"

"Only because you're taking us there."

"And here I was, thinking I'd misjudged you or something."

"Still the same bloke I was three days ago, Evans."

"Then why in the hell are you still here?"

"Lily—"

Why wasn't he leaving?

"Don't 'Lily' me."

"We can talk about—"

He chose that moment to do the worst possible bloody thing: console her with a placating hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged it off. "I can't."

"You can't, or you—"

"I just can't, okay?" She wasn't even mad at him, not really. She just—needed space. To clear her head. For her heart to stop beating so wildly. Bloody sleep. Her lungs to work. Mary. "Just—go. Please."

"You really want me to leave?"

He sounded injured, a wounded puppy. Could she blame him? She tried to calm her breaths, to will her voice to work, so she could give him a proper answer. Explain. Something. He interpreted her silence for her.

"Fine."

And before she could object, he rolled from the bed, picked up his shoes in one swift motion, and stormed to the door. His hand was on the knob when her voice finally bloody showed up. Strangled, yes, but it called after him.

He spun around quickly, and the almost-hopeful look on his face, barely illuminated, nearly did her in.

She was no better than her sister, with her biting remarks and driving him away, only to call him back again. Cat and bloody mouse. She swore Petunia got sadistic pleasure when Lily turned back around. Lily, however, felt nothing but guilt: it wasn't fair to him, any of this.

Whatever she'd been about to say died on her lips. His face hardened, stone, a coldness she hadn't thought possible. He gave a crisp bow.

"Good bye, Miss Evans."

The poor door shuddered on its hinges as he wrenched it open, and it quaked under the force with which he slammed it shut. The echo joined the exquisite pain blooming behind Lily's ears, reverberating long after he'd gone.

* * *

Well, he'd finally gotten his dramatic fucking exit, hadn't he?

She hadn't chased after him.

Sirius emerged from his room midmorning and found James tucked in his cozy arm chair, meticulously folding an intricate paper crane from one of the pages they'd created the day before. The corpses of its brethren lay smoldering in the fireplace.

James appreciated the poetry of it—creating something, watching it burn.

She hadn't chased after him, and he hadn't gone back. He'd yet to decide whether that was his saving grace or his ruination.

"Took you long enough to wake up, mate," he grumbled.

With a weary sigh, Sirius settled into the adjacent chair. "Don't get tetchy with me, mate, especially if you're going to brood in my sitting room and neglect to call for tea."

"I'm not brood—" James said, cutting it short when he caught Sirius's knowing expression.

"She a terrible shag?"

"I wouldn't know."

Sirius arched an eyebrow but didn't ask James to expound. He didn't retreat to his room, either, and James took that as an invitation.

"It's not real," he confessed, "any of it—the snogging or the declarations of love. It was revenge, all of it. To get back at the Dursleys and Mum and Dad."

Though Sirius said nothing, he grabbed a sheath of parchment and tore the edge off, squaring it. He was in for the long haul, then.

"I think I might like her, Padfoot, and I'm pretty sure she hates me."

"Her tits?" Sirius scraped the back of his thumb against the table, flattening the crease he'd just made.

"No." James said. "I mean, yes, those, and…more. Maybe? I don't know."

James sent his crane flying into the flames, and they reached up to devour it. He watched until it was ash. A long, easy silence stretched between him and Sirius as they folded, then folded again.

"What is it you want, Prongs?" Sirius finally asked.

"To run away," James tried.

Sirius shook his head. "Not plausible. You can either go home with her, mate, or without her."

"Well, I don't know which one I want to take," he lied—mostly. He liked her—was that enough? Christ.

He was nineteen. Married?

"Suppose we go home without her, then," Sirius said.

"All right."

"We'll end up, what?"

James threw his head back against his chair to mope at the ceiling. "Back here," he said. "Same issue, different girl."

Sirius tapped his chin. "You're a noble bastard, Prongs. I see the signs. You don't fancy her. You're half in love with her."

"I'm not." And he wasn't, because how could he be half in love after only two days?

"You are. Brooding. Indecisive. You dangled out a window to get a vase to impress a girl. You haven't acted this idiotic—not over a girl—since that professor."

Hell, Sirius was right…to a point. He wasn't in love with her, but whatever this was, he'd never felt it before, and he wasn't sure he would again. He wouldn't admit that just yet, though, so: "You're wrong."

"Makes no difference to me, mate. It's not my bloody marriage. And if you ask me—which you didn't, though I'll tell you anyway—you should be bloody well glad to be rid of her."

"Padfoot."

"What was it you called her the other night? A nasty, vindictive, redheaded shrew? You ought to be relieved."

"I know what you're doing, Padfoot. It's not going to work."

"Because, really, Prongs, she set you up for that vase thing, whatever you say, and she led you on. And that does make her worse than all of them combined, like you said not,"—Sirius glanced at the clock—"two and a half days ago, in this very room."

"Sirius—"

"And if that was her bloody idea, the revenge thing, it sounds like she's as much of a piece of work as you thought, and she and the Dursleys deserve each other…"

Black was trying to provoke him into defending her, into admitting it. Dammit if James didn't want to throw the prick out the window for it. He didn't, but only because he found himself saying, "She's not the worst of them, Sirius, and don't fucking say that about her and the Dursleys."

James didn't have the decency to hate himself for it, even, because Sirius was right.

"Which part of that did you find objectionable? The bit about the rest of them?" Sirius asked, trying not to sound bored with the conversation. Decent of him.

"Yeah." He turned in his chair to face Sirius. "And I reckon you're a bit right—about the other thing."

"The 'you being half in love with her' bit, you mean?"

"Do you have to say it like that?" James whined.

"Time is short, mate. Cut the bullshit."

"Fine. I'm not half in love with her, but I do like her." Freeing, admitting it. Embarrassing as hell, too. Time was short.

"A lot."

"Yes."

"What should I do?"

"Go find her and fuck her."

"Not helpful."

"You want me to go fetch Mum?"

James shook his head vehemently. His mother was the last thing he needed right now—she was going to be awful about the whole business, wasn't she?

"Thought so." Sirius gave James a wolfish grin. "Her tits must really be great, yeah?"

James flicked a crane at him. "Not the point, Padfoot."

"Then what is the point?"

James told him—that she was fantastic, brilliant, and wonderful, and all the reasons why.

To his credit, Sirius fidgeted a fair bit, but he didn't interrupt while James waxed poetic. He endured James's blathering about charm, her resourcefulness, her bloody spontaneity, her damned hair, her flair for dramatic exits, the ladder and the swing, and being held captive with Riddle's gang, even the extent of the shit she put up with from the Dursleys.

When he started describing her laughs, however, Sirius snapped. "Enough! Christ, Prongs. I should punch you."

James looked at him, despondent. "Please do."

"Fuck you for making me be Moony, Prongs, but here it is, best as I can figure: you are a goddamn fucking catastrophe."

"Obviously," James said, snorting.

"And you're mad about her, which is frankly an understatement. She fancies you. Whatever poetic sadness you're indulging in, mate, I've talked to Mary, and the girl bloody fancies you. She's not awful." Understatement, sure. This was Sirius, though, and James let it pass. "You've no idea what she's considering, or what her objections are. And the pair of you, self-sabotaging idiots who deserve each other, keep letting shit get in the way, distracting yourselves with the revenges and the shenanigans and whatnot."

"So? What should I do?"

Sirius waved a hand in the air. "Just, ask her out—to dinner. Cut the bullshit. Talk to her. Sort out her objections and soothe them. Win her bloody affections."

"That's…actually not half bad, Padfoot. Thanks."

Sirius shrugged. "Was bound to happen eventually."

Another silence. Sirius formed his cranes with renewed vigor, perhaps trying to scrub James's ramblings from his mind. James pondered how he was supposed to ask her to a proper dinner.

Moreover, what in the fuck he was supposed to do if she said yes.

"Prongs?" Sirius said, after he'd sent the last crane soaring into the fire.

"Hm?"

"This." He gestured between them. "Feelings? This isn't going to be a regular occurrence. Now, get out of here and go find Evans."

James snorted. "I tried talking to her, Padfoot. She wouldn't bloody have it."

She was still upset—he needed to write it out. Be formal. Give her a chance to breathe, and all that. He explained this.

"Send an emissary, then. Stepford? Whatever his name was. He'd do it."

"I don't trust the stable boys like I trust you, Padfoot."

"Oh—no. No fucking way."

"You owe me," James reminded him. A lie, sure. Sirius usually owed him for something, though, so it was worth the risk.

"The last three days have been the opposite of me owing you."

"Don't pretend my misfortune hasn't amused you."

"That doesn't mean I owe you."

James crossed his arms. "You will."

Sirius considered the point, then held up three fingers. "Three cock ups, free pass."

James shook his head. "One."

"Four," Sirius said, "and I'll deliver your invitation. I'll even help you sort out supper details."

"Two," James countered, "and you'll keep the whining about helping me to a goddamn minimum."

"Deal, now can we please order some fucking tea?"

* * *

Midafternoon, Mary showed up in Lily's washroom with tea, a large vase of sunflowers, and tarts balanced on a tray.

"Might want to rethink that, love," she advised Lily.

"Give me one good reason," Lily whined.

She'd hadn't been about to drown herself, really, but she had indulged in a proper cry. Or three. She preferred the practicality of crying in the bathtub, if it had to be done. She'd only just calmed herself, however, and the smallest provocation would certainly wind her up again.

"I'll give you seventeen." Mary held out the vase—their vase—overfilled with sunflowers. "Sirius just dropped them off."

"He—he can't fix this with flowers, Mary. Especially since I picked those four days ago."

"I watched Potter pick them himself, Lily."

Lily jutted her chin out in defiance.

"In the rain."

"The bastard."

"Yes, flowers," Mary said. "How deviant."

Lily splashed at Mary, and Mary nibbled on one of Lily's tarts as revenge.

"The card, if you're wondering," she said between bites, "is an invitation to a 'proper' dinner—proper is in quotes. Just the two of you. That bit was underlined. Someone wrote 'no bullshit' on the back, and I'm not sure whether that was him or not. It's a shit invitation, really, but I think he means well."

When Lily didn't respond, Mary nudged her elbow with her hand.

"Well," she said, "I accepted on your behalf."

"Oh, Mary, you didn't!"

"Give me one good reason why you shouldn't go."

"I'll give you twenty," Lily said, and her tears came in earnest, and those damned hiccupping sobs, and she couldn't carry on. Mary, bless her, moved Lily's hair back, and patted her shoulder, and handed over a handkerchief, and waited until she'd dried up again. When she'd regained control, however tenuous, Mary handed her a cup of warm cup of tea. She drained it, twice, before Mary pressed the point.

"What is it that has you so upset, Lily?"

Lily didn't answer. Not to be contrary, but she didn't know where to begin.

"Did he insult your hair? Is he a terrible snog?"

"Quite the opposite."

"Out with it, then."

"I don't want to have this conversation."

"I'd rather be sewing instead of trying to keep my balance on this ridiculous stool, but here we are. Start from the beginning, love."

Mary patted Lily's hand, and that tiny act of comfort spurred her on. Her words came haltingly at first. Then something broke, and she found she couldn't stop them.

The whole story tumbled out: her fight with Petunia, the ultimatum. That first morning, his croaky voice. Potter's wit. Their revenge—the practice—and how it had all gone horribly, catastrophically wrong. Although she didn't tell the story in anything like the proper order, Mary got the gist. Heart flutters and stomach twists. That easy grin in his voice when he told a story. His mates. That cursed jaw. The failed pillow fort and the vases and the banisters. Not knowing how he felt.

Eventually, of course, her words ran dry. She lay still and silent, spent, staring at the ceiling. Her water had gone cold, though she hardly noticed.

After a long silence, Mary said, "It pains me to say this, Lil, but you're well on your way to falling in love."

"I know." An overstatement, really, but close e-bloody-nough. Lily disappeared beneath the water. The soap stung at her eyes. When she emerged a moment later, she leveled a helpless, manic plea at Mary: "What do I do?"

"Say yes, then."

"To marriage?"

"To supper."

"He's a conceited arse!"

"Except we all have our flaws, don't we? And, Lily, when you were talking about him, just now…"

"Hm?"

She ran a hand through Lily's hair. "I haven't seen you that animated in months."

"Months?"

Mary nodded sagely, a very McGonagall gesture.

"He's kind of great, too," Lily confessed.

"He must have a great—"

"Christ, Mare. I've only felt it, not seen it. I'm not a tart."

Mary held out the tray. "Have a tart, tart."

Lily helped herself. She wasn't better, precisely, though the tarts helped. Mary helped. Getting the story out helped. The tea helped, even if it was sadly devoid of whisky.

Mary waited patiently—four entire minutes—before launching in again.

"I have one question, Lily Evans, and I need you to give it fair consideration before answering."

Lily sighed. "Fire away."

"Is this all so bad. Really?"

"What? Of course it is!"

"Yes, I know. World ending, suffering, woe to you—"

"Precisely."

"My next question, then, is—why?"

"Why?"

"Asking the question again won't help you answer it," Mary said, ignoring Lily's murderous scowl. "Why is it so awful? Because the Dursleys? Because they'd be right?"

Lily sank into the water until her ears were submerged.

"This looks bad for them," Mary tried to reason. "The Potters are eccentric, perhaps, yet they outrank the Dursleys. You would outrank them."

"What's your point? They don't care what lengths they have to go through to get rid of me? Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"No, Lil. It's—there is no feeling better with them, don't you see? That's my point."

"She's pregnant." There. She'd said it—this thing she'd been holding onto. "Petunia."

"That doesn't make it better, Lil." Mary said. "That makes it worse."

"I know, but it—at least I can understand. From her twisted point of view. The why, you know."

That was a falsehood. She couldn't understand, would never understand. However antagonistic their relationship, a sister shouldn't just—

"Do you want to be here, Lily?" Mary asked bluntly.

"No," she said. The realization was freeing.

She did not. Her sister was using her baby as a pretext for cruelty. Lily didn't want to be here to have any part of it. She'd held some naive hope, when she'd first arrived, that things could be mended. And if not mended wholly, like what Mary could do, some sort of patch, more like Lily's handiwork. Petunia had taken her in, after all.

Those hopes had evaporated within days of her arrival.

She'd been trying to escape ever since.

"Take them out of this, if you can," Mary said. "And me—I know she included me in her ultimatum, about going with Potter or kicking you out, to try and sway you, but don't worry about that. Please. What do you want?"

That, at least, was easy: "To make my own choice."

"You can say no, then. To the Potters."

"And be cast out? Wandering and impoverished?"

"I'm not saying they're good choices, but hear me out. We could make for the coast. Perhaps the Potters would consent to take us—they seem decent enough that it's worth asking. I could sew, you could…sell swings, or something. I don't know. We'd make it work."

Lily's tears started in earnest, this time for an entirely different reason. She squeezed Mary's hand. "This got serious, all of a sudden, didn't it?"

"Well, dear, I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but your time is short. Did you think you were going to avoid it forever?"

"That was my aim."

"Have another tart."

A gloomy quiet settled between them as they picked the tray clean.

"D'you know what the irony is?" Lily said at last. "I think I would have chosen him. If things had been different. If I'd had a proper choice. In a heartbeat, I would have. Isn't that funny?"

Although it wasn't at all funny, an odd smile formed on Mary's face. She leaned in so they were inches apart.

"So the real question is, Lily: if you like him so much, can you get over the rest of it? The Dursleys and the Provision and everything? Is he worth it?"

Sirius came bounding back into the room. "She said yes."

"What exactly did she say?" James demanded.

"No, Prongs. I'm not doing that verbatim shit."

James grunted his displeasure.

"So, what's the plan?"

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean—Christ, Prongs, you don't have a plan?"

"No," James replied, "I've got a plan. I've just…no idea how to make it work."

She said yes. The same thrill—anticipation mingled with horror—overtook him. His legs begged to pace, yet seemed to have gone numb, and his stomach kinked into knots even he couldn't untie.

He laid it all out for Sirius: what he'd worked out as her main concerns, how to address them, and what they'd need to do it.

Sirius rocked back on his heels. "That's ambitious, Prongs, even for you."

"I know." James ran a hand through his hair. "She's worth it."

She was, absolutely worth it. He'd made peace with it. Now he was determined to, as Sirius had said, woo her.

"You know what this means, right?"

"Yes," James said heavily. "She's going to be awful about it, yeah, but it's—"

"—the only way, yes."

Sirius pulled James to his feet, and they set out to find their mother.

* * *

Even blindfolded, Lily could trace the path to her tower room.

Except when she climbed the ladder—blindfolded, per the instructions he'd given Mary—and he took her hand and gave her the okay to slip it off, it was unrecognizable. Every inch had been scoured, not a cobweb to be seen. He'd lined the perimeter of the room with candles and hung cheerful curtains around the window. Matching yellow flowers, along with one unlit candle, adorned a table in the middle of the room—the only place where proper chairs could be used without knocking heads on the slanted walls.

"Hullo."

She jumped—she'd been so intent inspecting the room while he closed the trap door that she'd failed to properly notice him.

And now that she did properly notice him… Well. Damn He looked—good. Fit. Unfairly, devastatingly handsome, more like.

Sirius's polished touches—straight vest, crisp cravat—were obvious. She smiled at his hair, which was an unholy mess, as always, like he'd tried and given up halfway through. And he had a new smile. Not quite a smirk, not quite a grin.

It all added up to a version of James she hadn't seen before, or that she'd only seen glimpses of. He sucked in the hollow of his cheek.

She was staring. But it didn't matter, did it? He was staring, too.

"Hi," she returned, her throat feeling strangely constricted.

"Thank you for coming," he said, his hand moving halfway to his hair, then stopping. He walked forward to pull out her chair.

"Thank you for inviting me," she said, taking her seat. As he took his, she gestured to the room. "What is all this?"

"A proper dinner, like the card said."

She sipped her water. "And what does that mean? Proper?"

"No servants. No plots or subterfuges. No bullshit, Evans—that's Sirius's word, not mine."

No bullshit. Sirius Black had his uses, didn't he?

"It's brilliant," she said, and she meant it. As she exhaled, her tension lessened. Only infinitesimally, yes, yet it was enough. "Really, James, this is all brilliant. How'd you manage it?"

"Sirius—"

"Helped you with all this?"

"No." James smiled. "He bribed Stebbins and a few of the other boys with some brandy. Reckon they're making proper use of it by now."

"Awful," Lily said, but she didn't mean it at all.

"Mary told him which ones to go after."

"Any of them would've done it, you know, just to spite Petunia."

"Probably, yeah. You know, he's a bit put out."

"Stebbins?"

"Sirius."

"Over?"

"If Mary comes back with us… He's a flirt, yeah? That's all though. He's not—it's complicated. And Padfoot, for a bloke who loves complications, hates complicated."

"Oh, well—"

What was she to say to that—any of it? To the insinuation that Mary might come back with them, or the acknowledgement that Lily might not. She knew Mrs. Potter had offered Mary a position. That he was privy to that came as something of a surprise.

"It doesn't scare me, though," he told her.

"Come again?"

"It doesn't scare me—complicated."

She bit her lip to stifle a nervous laugh. "You're really, erm—taking Sirius's advice to heart, aren't you?"

"No bullshit," James said matter-of-factly. "I did warn you."

"You did."

"Does it scare you? Complicated?"

His voice had shifted to something gentler, bordering on wheedling, yet firm enough to let her know he wasn't going to let her maneuver out of an answer. Lily placed her hands in her lap and made a study of them. Because—she'd settled her mind about him, yes, but it was all so large, so permanent—and she fought against it because she didn't have a choice at all, not really.

Still, she knew she owed to him, and to herself, to be here, and she'd wanted to come—

"Yes," she said finally, truthfully. "It terrifies me."

"Do you want to eat?" He reached behind him and lifted the picnic basket into the air. "I'm not avoiding this. I just don't want it to go cold, if you're hungry."

"Oh—erm. I'm honestly not sure I can."

"Me neither…." He set it back down. "More mead?"

"Yes, please."

He refilled her glass, and waited until after she'd taken a sip before asking, "So, you know about the loophole."

She nodded.

"It ends tomorrow," he said.

"Which is why we're here tonight?"

He nodded.

"I'm sorry about this morning, James…"

"It's—all right. We both needed to take a breath, yeah?"

She opened her mouth to speak, and shut it again.

"No," he said, "if you've a thought on your mind, share it…please."

Lily set down her glass. Well, in for a farthing… "All right," she said. "Mary. You said, 'if she comes with.'"

"I did."

"What did you mean by that?"

"If you are coming home, with us, I asked Mum that she be part of the deal. Mum offered her a position without contingencies, which is—between them, really." He tugged at his cravat, mussing it up, suddenly unsure of himself. "I didn't mean to be an interfering git, Lily. I assumed you would want her to come, based on what you said about her…"

She risked a sip of mead and sorted that out, because—hm. She didn't know he was the one who'd fixed it. For Mary. For her. That was…exceptionally thoughtful of him. Damn.

"Based on what I've let slip about her, you mean," she said. "I haven't been forthcoming with you."

"I've noticed."

She sighed. "This conversation is extraordinarily awkward, James."

"Lily."

Her breath caught in her throat at the way he said her name. She'd been waiting for someone to say it like that for nineteen years... She hadn't known so much could be said in two syllables. He mirrored her own shocked expression, as if he'd surprised himself as well.

"I know," he continued, "that this is uncomfortable. Very. Everyone else has been having it for us, around us, about us—and I'm. I've never been one to sit idle and let people make decisions for me. I just—I want to talk." Then he added, "If that's amenable to you, of course. I'm not trying to be a prick, or—"

"You aren't being a prick. And you're right." Because he was, wasn't he? All he was asking was that they discuss all of this. He hadn't laid down any kind of ultimatum.

"Oi! Before I forget—here."

"What's this?" she asked, eyeing the large bag of jangling coins he'd just plopped onto the table.

"Gold."

"Clearly. Why?"

"Because I have options—real options. I could avoid this, all of it. Say no, leave here. Leave you. I could run away."

Hearing it didn't make her feel any better, and seeing the evidence made it worse.

"I know," she said. "Part of me despises you for it…"

"That's…fair. Only, I need to say this one thing. And then you can—despise me, rant all you want, and I'll listen." He paused, waiting for her acknowledgement before he continued. "I have this choice, Evans, and you don't. This isn't a choice for you at all. And—it doesn't sit well with me. I can't abide the thought that the only reason you'd come is to escape here, or to save Mary. Not that I would blame you." He waved a hand in the air. "I just don't want it on my conscience."

"You could leave me here—"

"To rot? To shiver at night? You're too damned clever to live as some shadow version of yourself. No one deserves this treatment."

She raised her chin, meeting his gaze head on. "I don't need your pity."

"Christ, I know, and I don't pity you." He leaned forward, placed both hands on the table. "You're stronger than anyone I've ever met, tolerating this bullshit. And—I'm not being a bloody hero here. The Dursleys paid this,"—he lifted the bag several inches and slammed it back to the table, nearly upsetting their glasses—"to my parents three days ago. This is your money."

The room swam around her, and tears prickled at the corners of her eyes. Her mouth dried up, like she'd swallowed ash.

"Shit," he yelped, seeing the tears slipping down her cheeks. "Please don't. I'm sorry—fuck. I shouldn't have let my temper best me." He held out his hand. "I'm sorry."

She took it in hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "No—it's not you, James. It's just—those bastards."

Because it wasn't him that was making these damned tears fall. It was him, yes, but in the greatest bloody possible way… Her sister, on the other hand… She'd didn't know this much joy and hurt could coexist in one heart.

"I'm sorry, Lily. I really am," he said, low and soothing. His thumb ran comforting circles on the palm of her hand. "I didn't intend to tell you like this."

"It's—there's no good way to break something like that…" she said, watery, shaky. "I think I did—know, that is. And, of course, I didn't want to believe it…"

The hot tears slipped down her cheeks, and she couldn't continue.

He pulled that sodding green handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her, and she withdrew her hand to blow her nose. A damn fine sight she looked now, surely, with her face all blotchy, yet there was nothing to be done for it.

She'd known she'd cry—an inevitability, really. It was just that she hadn't expected it to be over this.

"It's your inheritance, isn't it? Your share—from your parents?"

Although Lily could scarcely choke a response, that proved answer enough.

He swore under his breath, then said, "Well, my parents don't need it. It's yours. All of it, no contingencies."

"I don't need your pity," she said, "and I don't need saving."

"I know you don't need saving."

"Then what is this?"

His mouth quirked. "Consider it a rope ladder."

"I don't need it. Or—"

"Don't be stubborn," he snapped, then caught himself. "You do need it. You and Mary will need something to live off of—"

"Don't interrupt me, Potter."

"But—"

"James," she said, and that proved enough to silence him. "You said you could say your piece, and then I'd have mine. Are you going to keep your word, or not?"

He gaped, then closed his mouth. He straightened his tie. He crossed his arms, and then uncrossed them. He fiddled with his cufflink. Finally he settled a hand on the table and encouraged her to proceed.

"You did all of this—Mary, ensuring the choice was mine, really mine—because you care. About me. You care about me."

"Yes, I do."

His gaze was unwavering, sure, and she didn't look away. She blushed, yes, but she didn't look away.

"I don't need the gold," she said. "I mean I do want it, and I'm glad I have it back from them. I don't need it so I can run away with Mary."

"You'll have safe passage," he said. "We'll take you wherever you want to go. And if you decide in a month or more that it's not working, we'll help you then, too."

He was misunderstanding her, though not intentionally.

"Why would you help me with all that?" she asked. "Why would you let me change my mind?"

"Let you? Evans, I don't think that I could 'let' you do anything."

"Is that a compliment or an insult?"

"Compliment."

She smiled. "I'm not sure how I feel about that."

"The assertion that you're stubborn and pigheaded and will do exactly as you damn well please?"

"You sure that's a compliment?"

He grinned at her—easy, full. "Absolutely, yes."

"Then I'm not sure how I feel about you complimenting me."

"You'd prefer I insult you?"

"Erm, no. If that's your compliment, James Potter, I'm not sure I could handle your insults."

"Well then, take the compliment and say 'thank you, James.'"

She kicked his shin. Not enough to hurt, mind, but she communicated her point.

"Good enough, Evans" he said, "good enough."

And easy silence settled, then, until Lily eventually felt compelled to say it—it it—because he'd said his piece, put it out there, and she supposed it was her turn.

"What if I told you that I didn't need the gold to run away, James, because I wanted to come with you?"

He fingers ceased their drumming on the table. "Evans?"

She rolled her eyes. "Stop calling me that. Please."

"What do you want me to call you, then?"

"Potter?"

"What?" James said, rubbing the nape of his neck, and his eyes widening. And then: "Oh."

Lily buried her smile in her drink.

"Oh, shit."

"What?" Lily started at the sudden curse. Had she said too much? "You don't have to, if you don't want—"

"No, not that—that is brilliant. Only, I forgot to give you this earlier." He slid a small package across the table to her. "You're ever so distracting, you know, Ev—Potter." His face split nearly in two, and Lily's did likewise. "Sorry, I don't stand on ceremony. If you hadn't noticed, I'm rather rubbish at this.""The art of romance?"

"I think Sirius would say 'wooing,' but essentially, yeah. And I'm sure there's an opportune moment here… This is yours. I've no claim to it, or to pretend it's a proper gift or anything…"

"James—"

"I'm rambling, I know." He ducked his head, and his ears turned pink. He reached his hand up, to fuss with his hair. "I do that when I'm nervous."

"You rumple your hair when you're nervous, too."

James quickly removed his hand from his hair. "Open it."

He was watching her so eagerly—she almost hoped—and the package was the right size. Except when she pulled back the cloth, it wasn't.

"It's beautiful."

It wasn't a lie. She turned the bracelet in her hand. A bit tarnished from years of use, yes, though the details were exquisite. Perhaps a family antique? She tried to bite back her disappointment—she had no right to begrudge him a beautiful bracelet. She'd been foolish to hope…

She must not have done a good job hiding it because James pounded the table with his fist.

"Damn," he said, "I was afraid of that. Hold on…"

He grabbed another bag—how many sodding bags did he have hidden over there?—and she gasped when twenty gold bracelets of all shapes and sizes spilled over her side of the table.

"Where on earth—"

"I'll tell you about it sometime."

She looked up at him. "Not tonight?"

"We'll save it for another rainy day. Is it any of these?"

She examined them—and there, buried beneath the pile, there it was. Her bloody tears spilled again, though she was smiling brightly.

"That one," she choked. She held out her wrist, and he clasped her mother's bracelet back on. "Thank you—"

"Don't thank me, Lily. Christ. It's yours." He twisted the bracelet on her wrist with his thumb. "You never should've had to give it up."

"James?"

"Yeah?"

"You aren't rubbish at this."

He grinned that grin—the kind that made her want to upend the table and launch herself at him. She reached forward and slipped her hand into his.

* * *

Their appetites returned. They cleared the table of the gold and the bracelets, then picked their way through the basket and unraveled all that had elapsed between them.

"You know the money?" he said. "Dad played coy that first day, to drive the price up. He wanted that bastard to pay as much as possible."

"I like your parents," she declared.

"They like you," he said. They bloody adored her, really. His mum had only been a tad intolerable this afternoon. Mostly she'd been teary and a tiny bit intoxicated as she'd given him permission for the carriage and enough gold to buy off Riddle.

Lily was suddenly serious. "I came into this determined to make you loathe me. To loathe you."

"And?"

"Failed miserably on both counts."

"All your plans turn to shit, Evans."

"That they do."

Damn, hearing her say that was good. He'd been smiling and laughing like a love-struck fool. He was a fool already, and it was a bloody relief to know she was coming with for the ride. He hadn't realized how much the idea that she might say no had been pressing on him, until the weight was gone.

His mum had refused to give him the ring, however much he'd pleaded. She seemed to think that if Lily had said no, he'd do something rash and dramatic with it.

Ridiculous, wasn't it?

He'd have to give it to her in the morning.

"When did it change for you?" she asked in between bites of chicken.

He sipped his brandy while he considered the question. He could've named a dozen moments. He settled for: "When you told the story about the giraffe. You?"

She picked at her peas and smiled at her lap.

"The first night, I think. Anyone who could be that mischievous was worth knowing."

"Damn."

"I know."

The candles had dimmed significantly—had they really been here two hours? James remembered his match.

"Oi," James said, pulling Lily's unfocused gaze back to him.

She watched, bemused, as he pulled the match from his jacket pocket.

"Your last match?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"For me?"

"Sort of—I mean. I've got more at home," he said, shrugging.

He made to strike the match on the wall behind him and light the candle on their table. He'd saved it, to be symbolic, or whatever, but she shifted forward and grabbed his arm.

"The gesture is—ah—sweet, James, but you should keep it. I—kind of like the thought of you carrying it around, you know? Just in case we need to create a little mayhem." She plucked her napkin from the floor and placed it primly back in her lap. "Or for nostalgia, you know. Whatever."

With a grin, he slipped it back into his pocket.

"Your middle names?" he asked idly, after a lull in the conversation.

The food had long gone, and the silence wasn't uncomfortable, but he wasn't sure what came next. He could use his imagination, sure—had been using it quite vividly for three days. Only he didn't want to be presumptive, did he?

He'd ensured both their beds had new sheets though, just in case.

"I don't have one, unfortunately," she said. "But you've got three, so that makes up for it."

"I do have three."

"Well?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, what?"

"What order are they in?"

"Ah, Potter," he said, raising his goblet to her. "You can't expect a bloke to part with all his secrets at once."

She raised hers as well. "To shit brandy."

It was truly, awful brandy, but she was too buoyant to be picky.

"To never seeing Vernon Dursley's face again."

"Hear, hear," she said, laughing and tipping her glass at him. "To many more contests—"

"Arguments—"

"And creative ways to resolve them."

"Is that a threat?" he asked. He leveled that smirk at her, the one that made her flex her fingers and bite her cheek.

"Not a threat, Potter. A promise."

"Promise?"

She crossed her heart, and gave him the sly grin that made his cock twitch. "I solemnly swear."

"You have been paying attention."

"I have."

"To Provision 712?" James tried, and then frowned. "No. Too far. To adventure?"

"You mean risk?"

"Isn't it one and the same?"

She matched his grin, clinked her glass to his, and then she kicked his shin.

James Potter, he thought, rubbing said shin, you are still a fucking arse, and then he leaned over and kissed his wife.

* * *

Laughter echoed in the corridor: Stebbins and Davies, hauling the last of her things to the carriages. The carriages, where she'd soon meet up with Mary, James, and his family. Not only his family—they were hers now, too.

Lily did not follow. Instead she lingered, tidying her room for no one in particular. Not her room, the room.

She hadn't anticipated that leaving would be this difficult.

How odd, to feel pangs of nostalgia for a place she'd so long despised. Oh, she'd gladly light a match to the bed, but she'd definitely miss the rickety, crooked old table upon which she and Mary had spent so many evenings playing cards, and the armoire with its hidden compartments, and the room's one comfort—the cheerful yellow draperies.

She'd definitely miss the wobbly chair, which she and James had put to, well, adventurous uses the night before.

She'd woken before early, before dawn, strangely invigorated when she ought to have been exhausted. After disentangling herself from James and pressing a light kiss to his shoulder, she'd dressed, then indulged in a farewell tour of her favorite haunts: the gardens, her tower room, a particular oak tree overlooking the back pond.

Upon her return she'd found a very flustered James pacing in front of her fireplace. Poor James, who'd woken to an empty bed and thought—well, he'd been nearing panic, hadn't he?

She'd quickly assuaged his anxieties and properly distracted him. Distracted him so thoroughly, in fact, that they were half an hour later to breakfast.

Worth it.

And just as well, for breakfast had been awkward, bordering on miserable, the air heavy with the desire to have the thing over and done with as quickly as possible.

It had taken all morning, actually, to gather her things. And now Lily surveyed her room, struggling to pinpoint any discernable difference between today versus the day she'd arrived.

She came up short. Once she left, it might be as if she'd never lived here at all.

Except that wasn't entirely true, was it? Petunia could—and undoubtedly would—erase any physical evidence of her existence, but the staff would remember her.

She'd already endured a dozen emotional goodbyes, receiving well-wishes and small tokens of affection from the various staff: a bag of piano keys from the butlers; small box of seeds from the gardener; a bottle of questionable liquid from Davies. She'd bequeathed her map to him and Stebbins with the instruction that they were to use it for mischief, and to use it often. They assured her, grinning broadly, that it would be their life's work.

The best and worst gift, however, had come from Minerva.

She still reeled from the news that McGonagall would not be coming with them. Minerva had followed her and Mary here, after all, after Lily's parents had died, so she'd just assumed…

But Minerva had refused the employment offer, citing to Mrs. Potter her many thanks, but explaining that her constitution simply did not permit such a large and sudden upheaval. To Lily, she'd expounded: Lily's need for her had lessened, and she was needed more here. Mothering the staff, she'd called it, but Lily knew she meant protecting them from Petunia's wrath.

Lily had disagreed, of course, quite vocally, but to no avail—Minerva would not be dissuaded. She'd stayed up all night, painstakingly writing down Lily's favorite recipes for the new cook.

They didn't bother lying about visits; they were both entirely aware that Lily would not be returning.

A soft rap on the door frame interrupted her reverie. She turned to find James leaning against the doorframe.

"Hullo," she said, trying to discreetly wipe her tears.

"Hi." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "I'm not pressing, yeah? I just wanted to see how you—d'you need a moment alone?"

"I—"

"Do you want me to get Mary?"

"No, James. I think I just had my minute, actually."

He stepped into the room. "You can have another, if you need. Or twenty…"

"I don't need it, thanks, but could you, erm, come here?"

He quickly crossed the space between them and wrapped her in a tight embrace.

"Minerva?" he guessed.

She nodded. She hoped the tears slipping off the end of her nose in earnest weren't soaking through his vest, but James, rubbing soothing circles on her back, didn't seem to mind.

They hadn't hugged yet, had they? Not properly. Lily didn't consider herself the hugging sort, but she could grow accustomed to this, to him. He radiated warmth, and she gladly let him envelop her.

Eventually, her tears slowed, and her breathing calmed, aligning with his.

"Some goodbyes are harder than others, I guess," she said, once she could trust herself to speak.

"I understand…" he said, running a soothing hand up and down her back. "Actually I don't, but I can imagine…y'know, intellectually…actually I can't do that either, but—"

"James?"

"I'm muttering, aren't I?"

"Yes. And thank you."

He pressed a light kiss to her temple. "Off topic, but d'you want something to cheer you up?"

"Yes, please."

He pulled her hands down from around his waist, and Lily flushed, embarrassed that she hadn't let go sooner. But he didn't let go of her hand. He held it up between them, and before Lily could ask what on earth he was doing, he slipped an intricately wrought ring onto her finger.

The wrong finger, sure, but she wasn't bloody complaining.

"It's an engagement ring—my grandmother's. And we were never technically engaged, but—"

She stared at it, mouth open, and then closed it again.

"Sorry," he said, "I should have asked if you bloody wanted it, before I just shoved it on your finger."

"No, James. It's actually perfect. Really." She popped onto her toes, and gave him a short kiss.

"Oh, good." He wore that proud, preening grin. She patted his cheek. "D'you think we'll stop having awkward moments like this?" he asked.

She laughed. "It's been less than a day, yes? I think we'll need more time, don't you?"

"Well, when you put it that way."

"You're setting an awful precedent, you know."

He quirked his head. "Oh?"

She held up her hands. "Yesterday, a bracelet. Today, a ring. You're going to spoil me into expecting something new every day."

"Erm—I could swing that, probably, we've got a massive—"

"Christ, James!" she said, draping her arms around his neck. "I was joking."

He put his arms around her waist again, and pulled her flush against him. "I wasn't."

"I know."

"I could make you a swing for you, though."

"Or"—she raised an eyebrow—"you could admire and compliment me while I make one myself, yes?"

"Even better."

He grinned at her, but his eyes flickered to the window.

"They're waiting for us, aren't they?" she asked.

"Yeah." His hands dropped from her waist, and one of them jumped to his hair. "Most of them, anyway."

"What does that mean?"

"Erm, well. I don't think you brother-in-law will be coming to bid us farewell, actually."

"Dare I ask?"

"Do you really need to ask?"

"Only because I want the sordid details. I expect great things from you."

"Okay," he said, fidgeting from one foot to the other. "Thing is, we bumped into each other in the corridor, just now. And yesterday it was none of my business, and I kept silent, yeah? Because you asked me to. But today, Lily,"—he gestured to her—"you are my wife, and it is exactly my business. So, y'know, I gave him a piece of my mind. Or forty pieces. He is not coming, if he knows what's good for him, and good fucking riddan—"

She cut him off with a kiss, a proper kiss, flinging herself into his arms. A thank you, a declaration, perhaps all of the above. It quickly deepened into something hungry, devouring—they wouldn't have any time alone for hours, after all, so they might as well indulge now while they could. When she was sure he was thoroughly stupefied, she pulled away.

Punch drunk. Exactly as she felt.

He leveled that boyish, lopsided grin at her, the one she'd grown so fond of.

"James?"

"Hm?"

"I'm ready to leave now."

"Yeah," he said, his voice low, and sweet, and everything she wanted. "Let's go home."


End file.
